Division  3S2420 

Section    ,1-1216, 


^H 


(^^y^-i  u^  mcf}> 


JUL  ifi  1924 


The  Great  Ministry 


GEORGE  E.  HORR,  D.  D. 

President  of  the 
Newton  Tlieological  Institution 


BIBLE  STUDY  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
Boston,  Massachusetts 


Copyright,  1907.  1908 

by  the 

Bible  Study  Publishing  Company,  Boston 


MONOTYPED  AND  PRINTED  BY 

F.  E.  Bacon  &  Co. 

BOSTON 


FOREWORD 

This  book,  like  its  companion  volume,  The  Train- 
ing of  the  Chosen  People,  is  composed  of  chapters  pub- 
lished on  successive  weeks  during  the  year,  in  a 
number  of  weekly  and  daily  papers.  They  were 
designed  to  interpret  the  Bible  Study  Union  Course 
of  Sunday  School  Lessons  on  the  Gospel  History  of 
Christ. 

These  chapters  were  not  composed  by  a  painful 
reference  to  authorities  or  to  the  opinions  of  others. 
The  main  lines  of  investigation  as  to  the  gospel  nar- 
ratives were  not  unfamiliar,  and  with  these  in  mind 
the  author  has  sat  down  before  the  text,  seeking  its 
disclosure  of  the  portraiture  of  Jesus.  While  the 
task  of  verification  and  revision  has  been  done  with 
care,  the  book,  as  a  whole,  has  almost  written  itself. 
It  has  been  a  happy  experience  to  record  what  one 
has  seen  of  the  divine  Man  in  and  through  the  pages 
of  the  gospels. 

This  study  has  freshly  impressed  upon  the  mind 
of  the  writer  the  fact  that  the  person  of  Christ  is  the 
stronghold  of  evangelical  Christianity.  The  great 
problem  that  confronts  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism 
is  the  problem  of  the  classification  of  Jesus.  May  we 
not  be  compelled  to  put  Him  back  of  the  mundane 
order  into  the  cosmic  order?  No  line  of  investiga- 
tion is  more  helpful  in  answering  this  vital  question 
than  a  first-hand  study  of  the  New  Testament  por- 
traiture of  Jesus. 


iv  Foreword 

Through  the  whole  course  of  his  joyful  labor  the 
author  has  been  encouraged  to  believe  that  he  was 
doing  something  worth  while  by  appreciations  as  to 
the  helpfulness  of  these  expositions  written  by  those 
into  whose  hands  they  fall.  Personally  unknown  to 
one  another,  these  lovers  of  the  Master  and  the  author 
of  this  book  discovered  that  they  shared  kindred 
convictions  and  experiences.  The  author  can  desire 
no  better  fortune  for  this  child  of  his  spirit  than  that 
it  may  render  a  like  service  in  a  wider  circle. 

GEORGE   E.  HORR. 

Newton  Centre,  Mass.,  October  31,  1908. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  The    Promised  Saviour 1 

II.  The  Advent 5 

III.  The    Silent   Years 9 

IV.  Preparing  the  Way   of  the  Lord 13 

V.  The  Initiation   op   Jesus 17 

VI.  The  Recognition  of   Jesus 21 

VII.  The  Beginning  of  the  Public  Ministry  26 

VIII.  True  Religion  and  True  Worship 31 

IX.  Jesus'  Own  View  of   His   Mission 35 

X.  The  Early  Self-revelation  of  Jesus...  39 

XI.  The  Fidelity  of  Jesus  to  Himself 43 

XII.  The  Rights  of  the  Soul 47 

XIII.  Discerning  the  Lord 51 

XIV.  The  Society  of  Jesus 55 

XV.  What  is   Righteousness? 59 

XVI.     The   Motive    of   Righteousness 63 

XVII.     The  Evidences  of  the  Messiah 67 

XVIII.     The    Three    Attitudes    of  Men  toward 

Jesus 71 

XIX.     An  Exposition  of  the    Kingdom 75 

XX.     The  Finger  of  God 79 

XXI.     The   Conditions  of  Effective  Christian 

Work 83 

XXII.     A  Great  Temptation 87 

XXIII.  The  Parting  of  the  Ways 91 

XXIV.  The  Unity  of  the    Character  of  Jesus.  95 
XXV.     The  Great   Confession 99 

XXVI.     Forces    that    Advance    and    Resist   the 

Kingdom 103 

XXVIL     The  Divine  Assurance 107 

XXVIII.     The  Motives  to  Forgiveness Ill 

XXIX.     Unresponsiveness  to  Truth 115 

XXX.     Fellowship  and  Service 119 

V 


VI 


Table  of  Contents 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXXI.     Our  Lord's  Witness  to  Himself 123 

XXXII.     True   and  False  Religion 127 

XXXIII.  The  Use  of  Privilege 130 

XXXIV.  The  Joy  of  God 134 

XXXV.     The  Lord  of   Life  and  of  Death 138 

XXXVI.     The  Mind  of   the   Master 142 

XXXVII.     The  Rewards  of   the   Kingdom 146 

XXXVIII.     The  Serenity  of  the  Master 150 

XXXIX.     The  Secret  of  Jesus 154 

XL.     Going   up  to   Jerusalem 157 

XLI.     The  Nature   of   Sin 161 

XLII.     The   Witness   of   Jesus 165 

XLIII.  The    Temper  of  Jesus  after  His  Wit- 
ness AGAINST  Jerusalem 169 

XLIV.     The  Second  Coming  of  Christ 173 

XLV      The  Last  Supper 177 

XLVI.     The  Farewell  Message 181 

XLVII.     The  Shadow  of  the  Cross 185 

XLVIII.     Caiaphas  and  Pilate 189 

XLIX.     "He  Died  for  our  Sins" 193 

L.     The  Living  Jesus 197 

LI.     "The  Same   Jesus" 201 

LII.     Interpreting  Jesus 206 


THE  GREAT  MINISTRY 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  Promised  Saviour. 

Scattered  References. 

The  principal  argument  upon  which  the  Apostles 
relied  to  convince  their  Hebrew  brethren  that  Jesus 
should  be  accepted  as  Lord  and  Saviour,  was  based  on 
the  Old  Testament  prophecies  of  the  Messiah.  If  we 
accept  the  theory  of  many  modern  scholars  that  a 
somewhat  later  date  than  formerly  was  assumed 
must  be  assigned  to  certain  parts  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, the  argument  is  hardly  affected,  for  the  Old 
Testament,  as  the  Septuagint  translation  conclusively 
proves,  was  in  existence  in  its  present  form  centuries 
before  the  Christian  era.  Nor  is  the  strength  of  the 
argument  seriously  affected  by  the  theory  of  many  of 
these  scholars  that  certain  Messianic  references  are 
less  specific  than  the  older  authorities  affirmed.  Again, 
the  force  of  the  reasoning  does  not  depend  upon  the 
minute  interpretation  of  isolated  passages.  When  we 
survey  the  course  of  prophetic  teaching  in  a  large  way, 
its  forward  look  becomes  very  impressive,  and  when 
we  combine  the  specific  anticipations  of  individual 
prophets  in  a  single  conception  we  can  hardl}^  fail  to 
see  that  we  have  before  us  a  picture  of  the  Messiah 
w^hich  is  almost  startlingly  actualized  in  the  career 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 

We  are  all  familiar  with  the  way  one  picture  may  be 
concealed  in  another.  When  v.-e  look  intently  at  the 
representation  from  several  angles  of  vision  we  come 
to  see  in  it  what  was  not  perceptible  at  first.  There 
emerges,  it  may  be,  from  a  landscape,  the  form  of  a 


2  The  Great  Ministry 

human  countenance,  and,  after  we  have  once  seen 
the  hidden  portraiture,  we  can  hardly  see  anything 
else  in  the  drawing.  Or,  to  take  another  illustration, 
as  you  stand  in  the  Franconia  Notch  of  the  White 
Mountains,  between  the  Eagle  Cliff  of  Mount  Lafay- 
ette and  Cannon  Mountain,  and  look  up  at  the  jagged 
declivity  of  the  latter,  you  see  simply  a  mass  of  rocks; 
but  as  you  fasten  your  attention  upon  them  you  dis- 
cern the  perfect  representation  of  a  human  face, 
across  which  the  scud  of  the  flying  clouds  breaks.  It 
is  the  famous  "Old  Man  of  the  Mountain." 

Something  like  this  takes  place  in  our  study  of  the 
Hebrew  prophets.  We  can  relate  their  utterances  in 
a  large  degree  to  the  circumstances  of  their  own  times ; 
we  can  see  in  them  ordinary  history,  and  the  report 
of  orations,  but  all  the  time  we  are  aware  that  we  have 
not  fathomed  the  depths  of  this  wonderful  literature. 
It  points  forward  to  a  future.  It  contains  clear  but 
scattered  hints  and  suggestions  of  the  distinctive 
features  of  the  new  era.  These  anticipations  center 
about  a  Person.  And  while,  perhaps,  not  enough  is 
told  about  Him  to  enable  us  to  forecast  with  precision 
just  what  manner  of  man  He  will  be,  at  the  same 
time  enough  is  told  about  Him  to  enable  us  to  recog- 
nize Him  with  certainty  when  He  appears. 

The  general  correctness  of  this  statement  is  con- 
firmed by  the  impression  that  the  Hebrew  prophets 
made  upon  their  own  people.  The  Jews  were  thor- 
oughly responsive  to  the  Messianic  hope  that  animates 
these  writings.  Indeed,  there  are  many  indications 
that  this  hope,  throughout  the  centuries  immediately 
before  the  birth  of  Jesus,  became  the  dominant  note 
of  Judaism,  coloring  the  political  attitude  of  the 
Hebrews  toward  Greece  and  Rome,  and  furnishing 
the  imaginative  background  of  their  ethics  and 
religion.  To  be  sure  the  popular  interpretations  of 
these  prophecies  failed,  through  want  of  insight,  to 
reach  the  truth  as  to  their  spiritual  significance,  but 


The  Promised  Saviour 


probably  there  were  always  some  fine  natures  that 
were  attuned  to  the  historic  fulfilment  (Lu.  2:25,  37, 
38;  Jo,  1:41,  49).  And  we  know  that  the  favorite 
and  effective  argument  of  Paul  to  convince  the  Jews 
as  to  the  claims  of  Jesus  rested  upon  the  right  interpre- 
tation of  the  prophecies  (Acts  17:2,3;  18:28). 

But  the  detailed  forecasts  of  the  Messiah  are  not 
unsatisfactory.  Students  of  the  Scripture  will  find  it 
exceedingly  profitable  to  arrange  the  specific  Old 
Testament  prophecies  of  the  Messiah  and  their  New 
Testament  fulfilments 
in  parallel  columns,  and 
ponder  them  so  that 
they  make  their  natural 
and  legitimate  impres- 
sion on  their  own  minds. 
He  was  to  be  born  at 
Bethlehem  (Micah  5:2; 
Mt.  2:1;  Lu.  2:11).  His 
active  mission  was  to  be 
ushered  in  by  a  great 
preacher  (Mai.  3:1;  4:5, 
6;  Is.  40:3;  Jo.  1:15-28). 
He  was  to  teach  right- 
eousness, and  to  do  mar- 
velous works  of  mercy  (Is.  61:1-3;  Lu.  4:17-21;  8:1; 
Mt.  11:5).  He  was  to  be  recognized  by  some  as  the 
Messiah  (Zech.  9:9;  Mt.  21:5-9).  He  was  to  be  re- 
jected by  the  nation,  but  betrayed  by  an  individual 
for  thirty  pieces  of  silver  (Is.  53:3;  Zech.  11:12,  13; 
Jo.  19:14,  15;  Mt.  26:15).  He  was  to  be  crucified 
(Ps.  22:16;  Jo.  19:18),  with  malefactors  (Is.  53:12; 
Mt.  27:38),  given  gall  and  vinegar  for  drink  (Ps.  69: 
21;  Jo.  19:28-30),  but  His  bones  were  not  to  be 
broken  (Ps.  34:20;  Ex.  12:46;  Jo.  19:33),  and  His 
vesture  was  to  be  divided  by  lot  (Ps.  22:18;  Jo.  19: 
23,  24).  He  was  to  die  as  an  offering  for  the  sins  of 
others   (Is.   53:10;    Mt.  20:28).     The  grave  was  not 


The  Prophet  Isaiah. 
By  Michael  Angclo. 


4  The  Great  Ministry 

to  hold  Him  (Ps.  16:9,10;  Acts  2:31).  He  was  to 
establish  an  enduring  kingdom  (Is.  53:10,  11;  Mt.  28: 
19,  20). 

Such  forecasts  and  fulfilments  might  be  largely 
multiplied.  They  are  too  numerous  and  detailed  to 
be  accounted  for  on  the  ground  of  chance  coincidence. 
But  the  argument  does  not  turn  wholly  on  these 
definite  and  almost  startling  correspondences.  Be- 
neath details  there  is  revealed  the  form  and  counte- 
nance of  the  suffering  servant  of  Jehovah,  the  Re- 
deemer who  is  at  the  same  time  "the  man  of  sorrows." 
The  drift,  the  general  impression,  the  mood  which 
these  writers  beget,  however,  are  the  great  thing. 
Still,  when  we  seek  an  adequate  description  of  the 
character  and  mission  and  achievement  of  Jesus,  how 
often  we  are  constrained  to  turn  to  the  account  given 
of  Him  long  centuries  before  His  birth  (Is.  ch.  53) ! 

It  is  said  that  the  term  "indenture"  arose  from  the 
custom  of  dividing  the  parchment  which  contained 
the  contract  b}^  a  notched  line  cut  with  a  knife. 
When  each  indentation  fitted  into  its  counterpart  the 
document  was  self-attested  as  genuine.  Something 
like  that  is  true  of  the  prophetic  representation  of 
the  Messiah  and  the  historic  life  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 
Histor}^  and  prophec}'  match  each  other,  and  this 
correspondence  demonstrates  that  the  history  is 
simply  the  development  of  the  plan  of  God,  and  that 
the  history  is  to  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of  the 
prophecy. 


CHAPTER  11. 

The  Advent. 

Mt.  1:18-25;  Lu.  1:5-66;   2:1-20;  Jo.   1:1-18. 

"There  is  nothing  so  easy,"  says  Principal  Fair- 
bairn,  "as  to  change  conditions  into  causes,  to  mistake 
the  enumeration  of  formal  elements  for  the  discovery 
of  the  plastic  mind."  The  administrative  system  of 
the  Graeco-Roman  power,  the  developments  of  later 
Judaism,  and  the  Messianic  expectation  do  something 
to  explain  the  readiness  of  the  world  for  the  advent 


From  a  photograph. 

The  Church  of  the  Nativity  at  Bethlehem. 

of  Jesus,  but  they  do  nothing  to  account  for  the  vital 
spiritual  energy  that  emanated  from  His  personality, 
and  transmuted  the  historic  forces  into  historic  Chris- 
tianity. Within  the  grain  of  wheat  there  resides  a 
marvelous  vital  force.  When  the  seed  is  planted  in 
the  soil,  that  force,  like  a  loom,  weaves  the  chemical 
constituents  of  the  earth,  the  moisture  and  the  sun- 
shine, into  the  growing  plant.  A  spiritual  force  like 
that  entered  the  realm  of  human  life  at  the  birth  of 
Jesus,  and  ever  since  it  has  been  weaving  human 
thought,  human  aspirations,  human  institutions,  into 
new  patterns,  more  or  less  conformable  to  its  own 
type.     The  civilized  world  has  made  no  mistake  in 


6  TJie  Great  Ministry 

declaring  by  its  calendar  that  the  birth  of  Jesus 
marks  the  beginning  of  a  new  era.  Whether  or  not 
we  are  personally  followers  of  Jesus,  we  are  confronted 
by  the  fact  that  His  career  marks  the  introduction 
of  a  novel  and  tremendous  spiritual  force  into  the 
life  of  humanity.  And  we  are  to  appraise  that  force 
not  merely  by  the  record  of  it  in  the  gospels,  but  by 
a  sympathetic  appreciation  of  the  whole  course  of 
history  as  influenced  by  Jesus,  iust  as  we  truly  appre- 
hend the  Mississippi,  not  simply  by  exploring  its 
sources,  but  by  traversing  the  vast  floods  that  it 
pours  through  the  continent  to  the  gulf. 

It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  we  should  study 
the  narratives  that  make  up  the  Christmas  story. 
They  are  to  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  sub- 
sequent history.  If  the  life  whose  beginning  on  the 
earth  they  record  can  be  fairly  classified  as  simply 
human,  they  become  improbable.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  Jesus  cannot  be  fairly  classified  with  men,  and 
if  His  influence  has  interpenetrated  human  life  with 
divine  forces,  and  brought  men  everywhere,  when 
they  have  responded  to  it,  into  conscious  vital  fellow- 
ship with  God,  we  come  to  these  narratives  with 
reverent  confidence. 

After  all,  what  is  the  essential  thing  in  all  these 
records  but  this — that  Jesus  is  not  the  product  of  the 
forces  that  are  resident  in  human  life  and  in  the  order 
of  the  world,  but  His  personality  is  identical  with  the 
creative  intelligence  and  will  that  is  the  ground  and 
source  of  human  life  and  the  visible  universe  (Jo. 
1:1-4)?  And  yet,  at  the  same  time,  this  personality 
enters  into  human  life  and  the  order  of  the  world, 
becoming  absolutely  identified  with  the  experiences 
and  conditions  of  humanity  (Jo.  1:14).  In  His 
nature  Jesus  is  identical  with  God,  in  His  life  He  is 
identified  with  man. 

From  this  point  of  view  we  cannot  miss  seeing  the 
beauty    and    satisfactoriness    of   the    advent    stories. 


The  Advent 


We  know  little  about  Mary,  the  mother  of  Jesus. 
But  if  the  narratives  in  the  gospel  of  Luke  were  among 
the  memories  she  cherished  in  her  heart,  they  reflect 
the  purity  and  delicacy  of  her  sweet  woman's  soul. 
And  she  had  such  insight  and  spiritual  elevation  that 
she  gave  utterance  to  the  supreme  hymn  in  human 
literature  (Lu.  1:46-55).  Surely  she  was  fitted  above 
all  women  to  be  the  medium  of  the  divine  life. 

It  is  also  in  harmony  with  the  marvelous  event  that 
some  prophetic  spirits  should  have  been  responsive  to 
the  coming  fact  (Lu.  1:42-45).     Nor  is  it  strange  that, 

as    the    fulfilment    of    the  

ancient  prophecies  drew 
near,  sympathetic  hearts 
should  have  been  moved 
to  look  for  it,  and  should 
have  come  to  the  town 
that  Micah  had  foretold 
would  be  the  birthplace  of 
the  Messiah  (Micah  5:2; 
Mt.  2:1-10).  Nor  do  we 
wonder  that  a  specific 
divine  announcement  ac- 
companied the  birth  of 
Jesus.  In  realms  of  being 
beyond  our  own  there 
must  have  been  a  pro- 
found interest  in  the  great 
revelation,  and  it  was  congruous  that  those  who  felt 
this  most  should  have  broken  through  the  frontiers 
of  the  realm  of  nature  to  interpret  to  men  something 
of  its  significance  (Lu.  2:8-20).  Indeed,  without  the 
song  of  the  angels  we  should  have  felt  that  the  sym- 
pathy of  all  ranges  of  being  in  the  astounding  event 
was  insufficiently  manifested. 

Certainly,  when  we  take  these  narratives  together 
they  are  marked  by  a  deep  interior  agreement.  If 
Jesus  was    the  "Word"  made  flesh  (Jo.  1:14),  every 


A  Street  in  Bethlehem. 


8  The  Great  Ministry 

difficulty  vanishes.  The  parts  of  the  story  hang  to- 
gether. The  narrative  is  congruous  with  itself,  on  the 
plane  on  which  it  is  projected,  as  a  mathematician 
might  say. 

But  the  parts  of  the  advent  story  are  not  only  con- 
gruous with  each  other,  they  are  in  deep  interior 
accord  with  the  subsequent  career  of  Jesus.  As  Dr. 
Newman  Smyth  has  suggested,  the  story  of  the 
resurrection  matches  the  story  of  the  advent  as  a 
glorious  sunset  matches  a  beautiful  sunrise  on  a  per- 
fect day  in  June,  and  the  deeds  of  power  and  words 
of  wisdom  match  the  advent  and  the  resurrection  as 
the  golden  hours  of  such  a  day  match  its  beginning 
and  its  close. 

Upon  this  fact  of  the  inner  coherence  and  con- 
gruity  of  the  gospel  narrative  we  may  build  a  noble 
argument  for  the  historic  truthfulness  of  the  whole 
record.  If  the  Evangelists  imagined  the  narratives 
of  the  birth  of  Jesus  they  addressed  themselves  to  a 
stupendous  task,  for  they  made  it  necessary  that  they 
should  portray  a  life  that  would  match  their  intro- 
duction. No  temple  constucted  by  human  hands 
could  match  that  porch.  If,  however,  they  did  not 
imagine  but  described;  if  the  record  of  the  birth  and 
the  record  of  the  life  are  records  of  fact,  we  can 
account  for  the  poise  with  which  they  tread  these 
perilous  heights,  and  for  the  unrivaled  success  with 
which  they  have  carried  their  story  on.  The  reply 
that  Rousseau  gave  in  his  Entile  to  those  who  asserted 
that  the  gospel  story  was  a  fiction  is  still  of  force: 
"Then  the  inventor  would  be  more  astounding  than 
the  hero." 


CHAPTER   III. 
The  Silent  Years. 
Mt.  ch.  2;  Lu.  2:21-52. 

We  have  only  a  hint  or  two  in  the  gospel  narra- 
tives as  to  the  life  of  Jesus  until  He  had  reached  His 
thirtieth  year;  but,  for  all  that,  we  may  have  a 
tolerably  distinct  picture  of  the  conditions  under 
which  the  boy  grew  into  young  manhood,  and  the 
habit  of  His  life. 

Judaism  has  developed  and  put  in  practice  one  of 
the  noblest  ideals  of  the  home  the  world  has  ever 
seen.     To  this  day  the  typical  Jewish  home  leaves 


Nazareth. 


From  a  photograph. 


little  to  be  desired.  In  it  there  is  a  mingling  of  con- 
jugal, parental  and  filial  devotion  that  binds  human 
hearts  into  the  higher  unity  of  the  family.  In  the 
Jewish  household,  then  as  now,  the  wife  and  mother 
had  a  place  of  peculiar  honor.  The  reluctance,  even 
of  the  poor  Russian  Jews  who  have  found  refuge  in 
our  American  cities,  to  permit  their  daughters  to 
enter  gainful  occupations;  their  desire  that  girls 
shall  be  trained  in  the  home  so  as  to  be  efhcient  mis- 
tresses of  the  homes  they  are  to  have,  is  a  survival 
to  our  own  times  of  the  ancient  Hebrew  ideal  of  the 
sanctity  of  the  home  and  of  woman's  place  in  it.     The 

9 


10  The  Great  Ministry 

most  beautiful  and  moving  love  story  in  the  world 
is  the  narrative  in  Genesis  of  the  love  of  Jacob  and 
Rachel.  Making  proper  allowance  for  Oriental  cus- 
toms, no  woman  could  desire  a  greater  love  than 
that  of  Jacob.  After  she  had  been  dead  forty  years 
she  still  held  her  place  in  her  husband's  heart.  Into 
such  a  home  our  Lord  was  born. 

We  cannot  doubt  that  the  best  ideals  of  Hebrew 
womanhood  were  fully  realized  in  Mary,  the  mother 
of  Jesus.  Protestant  Christians,  in  their  revolt  from 
the  Roman  adoration  of  Mary,  should  not  forget  that 
she  is  forever,  as  the  angel  said,  "blessed  among 
women."  Does  the  Sistine  Madonna  idealize  too 
much  the  glorious  womanliness,  the  tender  mother- 
hood, the  celestial  consciousness  of  Mary?  We  can 
hardly  think  so.  And  this  was  the  mother  at  whose 
breast  the  child  Jesus  nursed.  Her  lips  taught  His 
to  lisp  the  sweet  Aramaic ;  her  deft  fingers  made  His 
baby  clothes;  her  hand  steadied  His  first  steps; 
upon  her  bosom,  into  her  ear,  He  confided  His  childish 
joys  and  sorrows;  her  voice  taught  Him  the  law  and 
history  of  their  ancient  race,  and  framed  His  first 
prayers.  No  picture  of  His  boyhood  is  complete 
that  does  not  enshrine  the  face,  the  form,  the  voice, 
the  manner  of  His  mother. 

Doubtless  it  was  a  home  of  slender  means.  But 
poverty  is  always  relative,  and  there  is  no  reason 
for  thinking  that  the  household  was  ever  in  want. 
With  industry  and  good  management  there  was 
enough. 

We  get  just  one  glimpse  of  Jesus  as  He  is  approach- 
ing adolescence  (Lu.  2:41-52).  Artists  have  sought 
with  varying  success  to  portray  the  incident  of  the 
visit  to  the  temple  and  Jesus'  conversation  with  the 
doctors.  Hofmann's  picture  is  well  known,  but  Tis- 
sot's  representation  of  the  boy  leaving  the  temple, 
walking  between  Mary  and  Joseph,  is  singularly 
happy.     As  you  look  into  the  boy's  eyes  you  see 


The  Silent  Years 


11 


that  His  soul  belongs  to  a  different  realm  from  that 
in  which  Joseph,  or  even  Mary,  is  living.  He  is  the 
dutiful  human  child,  but  already  He  has  heard  in  the 
depths  of  His  own  soul  the  call  of  His  Father's  work. 
Before  machinery  had  taken  the  place  of  hand  labor 
one  of  the  most  attractive  occupations  was  that  of  a 
carpenter.  It  is  clean,  wholesome  work,  and  any  suc- 
cess in  it  demands  the  intelligence,  precision  and  skill 
that  only  come  from  long  training  of  the  mind,  the 
eye  and  the  hand.  The  fashioning  of  an  Oriental 
plough-yoke  was 
not  the  work  of  a 
tj^ro,  while  a  well 
made  and  fitted 
door  or  window 
was  no  easier  a 
piece  of  work  then 
than  now.  Our 
most  advanced  psy- 
chology is  inculcat- 
ing that  a  high 
place      should      be 

given       to       manual  The  Virgin's  Fountain.  Nazareth. 

training  m  tne  ae-  ^^  ^Y^^g  j^  t^^p  ^^jy  spring  i„  the  town,  Jesus  and  His 
Velopment    of    intel-     mother  must  have  gone  to  U  daily. 

ligence  and  character.  Singularly  enough,  this  is  the 
precise  discipline  that  Jesus  appears  to  have  had  in 
His  boyhood  home. 

All  the  outward  conditions  of  the  life  of  Jesus  were 
favorable  to  the  production  of  a  strong,  noble  type 
of  character.  But  outward  conditions  are  not  the 
final  determining  element  in  the  issues  of  any  human 
life.  The  first  temptations  of  Jesus  could  not  have 
been  those  which  met  Him  in  the  desert  after  His 
baptism.  In  the  happiest  and  most  united  house- 
holds there  are  inevitable  irritations  and  annoyances 
arising  from  the  subtile  conflict  of  temperaments. 
Even  when  young  men  do  not  yield  to  lower  solici- 


12  TJie  Great  Ministry 

tations,  the  temptation  to  envy,  pride,  and  selfish- 
ness may  be  almost  overpowering.  The  purity  of 
the  home  atmosphere  may  not  be  antiseptic  against 
these  subtile  bacteria.  To  be  sure,  this  home  was 
Oriental,  and  we  Occidentals  find  it  dififiicult  to  repro- 
duce imaginatively  all  of  its  intimate  details,  but  this 
home  was  human,  and  that  is  something  we  can  all 
interpret.  Let  any  young  man  or  woman,  trained  in 
a  loving  home,  with  brothers  and  sisters,  recall  the 
inevitable  discipline,  even  under  happiest  conditions, 
of  these  human  associations,  and  the  reminiscence 
will  suggest  something  of  the  self-discipline  and  self- 
control  of  Jesus. 

It  has  sometimes  been  said  that  you  cannot  be 
certain  that  Jesus  was  sinless  until  you  have  scruti- 
nized every  act  He  ever  did.  That  assertion,  however, 
overlooks  the  genetic  relationship  of  all  acts,  and  the 
genetic  evolution  of  character.  You  see  the  ship 
swinging  with  the  tide  held  by  the  steel  cable  to  the 
anchor  lodged  in  the  rocks.  You  can  only  see  a  few 
links  of  the  cable,  but  you  know  that  the  fathoms  of 
it  hidden  beneath  the  water  are  equally  strong,  be- 
cause these  links  you  can  see  are  doing  their  work  of 
holding  the  ship.  The  prophet  Jeremiah  asked  (12: 
5) :  "If  thou  hast  run  with  the  footmen,  and  they  have 
wearied  thee,  then  how  canst  thou  contend  with 
horses?"  But  if  one  can  contend  with  horses,  surely 
he  has  not  been  wearied  by  footmen.  The  fact  that 
Jesus  resisted  temptations,  concerning  which  we  are 
well  informed,  that  were,  as  we  shall  see,  peculiarly 
insidious  and  strong,  affords  a  trustworthy  basis  for 
a  judgment  as  to  His  self-conquest  in  the  silent 
years.  The  whole  cable  holds.  The  contention  with 
horses  demonstrates  the  mastery  over  the  footmen. 


CHAPTER   IV. 
Preparing  the  Way  of  the  Lord. 

Lu.  3:1-18,  and  Scattered  References. 

The  greatness  of  John  the  Baptist  has  the  supreme 
attestation  of  the  witness  of  Jesus.  He  said, — and 
that  at  a  moment  when  the  faith  of  John  in  Himself 
seemed  to  waver,— "Among  them 
that  are  born  of  women  there  is 
none  greater  than  John"  (Lu.  7:28). 
If  John  did  not  stand  so  near  Jesus 
we  could  more  easily  recognize  the 
justness  of  this  opinion.  And  it  is 
an  incidental  but  significant  testi- 
mony to  the  greatness  of  Jesus  that 
a  rich,  large,  heroic  figure  like  that 
of  John  the  Baptist  is  almost  over- 
looked when  brought  near  the  per- 
sonality of  our  Lord. 

The  proper  background  for  the 
appreciation  of  the  message  and 
career  of  John  the  Baptist  is  afforded  by  recalling 
that,  during  the  period  of  his  activity,  the  Messianic 
expectation  among  the  Hebrews  was  peculiarly  vivid. 
The  long  delay  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  ancient  proph- 
ecies had  sharpened  rather  than  dulled  anticipa- 
tion. The  very  conflict  of  opinions  as  to  how  the 
prophecies  were  to  be  fulfilled  intensified  interest  in 
the  great  theme.  Some  held  that  Jehovah  Himself 
would  come  to  judgment;  others  that  the  political 
sovereignty  of  Israel  would  be  established  over  the 
nations  by  a  series  of  miraculous  events,  and  others 
that  a  new  order  would  be  inaugurated  under  some 
God-sent  representative,  in  which  the  interest  of 
righteousness  should  at  least  be  as  prominent  as  those 
of  political  dominion.     This  general  expectation  that 

13 


John  the  Baptist. 
By  Titian. 


14 


The  Great  Ministry 


Judaism  was  on  the  eve  of  a  fulfilment  of  prophetic 
forecasts,  no  matter  what  the  precise  interpretation 
given  to  them  by  different  parties,  created  a  public 
temper  singularly  responsive  to  the  call  of  a  brave 
and  noble  personality  Hke  that  of  John  the  Baptist, 
whose  message  struck  the  chords  of  conscience,  and 
whose  personal  life  was  in  thorough  agreement  with 
his  teaching.  Josephus,  who  seems  to  go  out  of  his 
way  to  avoid  mentioning  Jesus,  records  with  some 
detail  the  deep  and  wide  impression  made  upon  the 


Hebron. 
The  supposed  home  of  John  the  Baptist. 

nation  by  the  preaching  of  John  the  Baptist,  who 
announced  that  the  kingdom  of  God  was  at  hand. 

Though  John  recognized  Jesus  as  the  Christ  (Jo. 
1:29,  36),  he  did  not  fully  grasp  the  precise  nature 
of  the  Messianic  kingdom  or  the  method  of  Jesus 
(Lu.  7:19).  But,  in  spite  of  this,  his  message  was  as 
perfectly  adjusted  to  the  work  of  our  Lord  as  though 
he  had  understood  it  more  perfectly.  Such  uncon- 
scious co-operations  on  the  part  of  the  workers  sug- 
gest an  impressive  inference  as  to  the  divine  super- 
intendence of  human  efforts.  Men  are  all  the  time 
working  like  John  the  Baptist  by  the  light  of  partial 
insights.  But,  as  we  look  back  upon  their  work  and 
appreciate  its  delicate  adjustments  to  a  large  purpose, 
we  say: 


Preparing  the  Way  of  the  Lord  1 S 

"Himself  from  God  he  could  not  free; 
He  builded  better  than  he  knew." 

The  specific  point  at  which  the  preaching  of  John 
was  adjusted  to  the  message  of  Jesus,  and  so  became 
preparative  for  our  Lord's  work,  was  his  insistence 
that  the  kingdom  of  God  was  based  upon  the  thorough- 
going righteousness  of  all  its  members.  Whatever 
John's  misconception  as  to  the  Messianic  method 
(Lu.  3:15-17),  he  was  absolutely  clear  that  the  king- 
dom of  God  did  not  embrace  the  whole  nation  as  such. 
Abrahamic  descent  gave  no  title  to  membership 
(Lu.  3:8).  The  condition  of  membership  was  repent- 
ance, and  the  bringing  forth  of  fruit  worthy  of  re- 
pentance. We  are  so  familiar  Avith  these  ideas  that 
it  is  easy  for  us  to  underestimate  the  profound  origi- 
nality and  insight  of  John  the  Baptist  in  taking  his 
stand  upon  them.  They  were  faithful  to  the  inner 
spirit  and  genus  of  the  ancient  prophecies,  rather 
than  to  their  letter.  They  did  away  at  a  stroke  with 
all  those  superficial  and  conventional  distinctions  of 
birth  and  special  privilege,  of  which  men  have  always 
made  so  much,  and  they  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  deep  down  on  the  bed  rock  of  per- 
sonal righteousness.  The  way  by  which  Jesus 
secured  that  righteousness  was  not  the  way  of  John 
the  Baptist,  but  it  did  not  contradict  John's  way,  or 
abrogate  it.  The  way  of  Jesus  simply  added  to 
repentance  the  mighty  force  of  faith.  But  the  end 
that  Jesus  contemplated — a  kingdom  of  righteous- 
ness— is  absolutely  identical  mth  the  ideal  of  John. 

Perhaps  John  did  not  fully  recognize  how  his  great 
central  principle  was  to  universalize  the  kingdom 
of  God.  Jesus  saw  it,  and  taught  it  (Mt.  25:32),  but 
His  disciples  did  not  see  it.  It  took  a  remarkable 
series  of  providences  to  open  the  eyes  of  Peter  to  the 
fact  (Acts  10:34,35).  As  soon  as  the  early  church 
caught  a  glimpse  of  it  their  entire  attitude  toward 
the  world  was  revolutionized.     When  Paul  grasped 


16  The  Great  Ministry 

the  central  thought  of  John  the  Baptist's  message,  he 
became  the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles.  The  idea  rings 
through  the  epistles  like  a  dominant  chord  in  a  musi- 
cal movement,  and,  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  New 
Testament,  it  sounds  forth  full  and  clear  :  "The  Spirit 
and  the  bride  say,  Come.  And  ...  he  that  will, 
let  him  take  the  water  of  Hfe  freely"  (Rev.  22:17). 

The  spirituality,  the  universality  and  the  democracy 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  were  in  germ  in  that  great  doc- 
trine of  John  the  Baptist,  and  its  application  to  human 
governments  laid  the  firm  foundation  of  free  institu- 
tions. When  we  think  of  John  the  Baptist  let  us  not 
picture  him  as  a  rude  and  shaggy  fanatic,  or  as  a 
vague  preacher  of  righteousness;  let  us  think  of  him 
as  the  man  who  first  taught  effectively  the  great  doc- 
trine that  membership  in  the  kingdom  of  God  does 
not  depend  on  birth  or  position,  or  upon  any  of  the 
accidents  of  fortune,  but  upon  the  movement  of  the 
soul  toward  righteousness. 


CHAPTER  V. 
The  Initiation  of  Jesus. 

Mt.  3:  13—4:  11. 

The  essential  feature  of  the  message  of  John  the 
Baptist  was  that  membership  in  the  kingdom  of  God 
was  not  dependent  upon  birth  or  special  privilege  of 
any  sort,  but  upon  the  attitude  of  the  individual  to- 
ward the  claims  of  righteousness.  The  attainment 
of  this  right  relationship  on  the  part  of  sinful  men 
involved  repentance,  which  John  did  not  conceive  of 
simply  as  an  emotional  experience,  but  as  a  resolute 
turning  away  from  wickedness  to  righteousness.  In 
his  thought  of  repentance,  as  throughout  the  New 


The  River  Jordan. 


From  ft  photograph. 


Testament,  the  main  element  is  not  sorrow,  but  ac- 
tion. Rightly  conceived,  sorrow  for  sin  is  simply 
the  reverse  side  of  love  of  righteousness,  but  both  the 
sorrow  and  the  love  are  worthless  unless  the  living 
spirit  actually  espouses  and  works  for  righteousness. 
The  rite  of  baptism,  which  John  administered  to  his  dis- 
ciples, was  a  true  and  beautiful  symbol  of  his  germinal 
ideas.  It  admirably  typified  the  death  to  sin  and  the  life 
to  righteousness  which  he  v/as  preaching  (Rom.  6:2-4). 
When  Jesus,  therefore,  came  to  John  desiring  to 
be  baptized,  it   signified   that  Jesus  recognized   and 

17 


18  The  Great  Ministry 

fully  accepted  the  ideas  of  John  for  which  his  bap- 
tism stood.  In  no  more  effective  way  could  Jesus 
have  declared  to  the  world,  that,  however  high  the 
superstructure  might  rise  which  He  was  to  build,  He 
accepted  the  foundation  that  had  been  laid  by  John. 

Jesus  adds  to  the  ideas  of  John  most  important  new 
conceptions,  but  the  conceptions  of  Jesus  do  not  con- 
tradict those  of  John.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  in 
such  thorough  accord  with  them  that  Jesus  at  once 
accepted  the  distinctive  teachings  of  the  Baptist  as 
the  foundation  principles  of  His  own  Messianic  king- 
dom. It  was  given  to  this  greatest  of  the  prophets,  the 
crown  and  flower  of  the  prophetic  impulse  in  Judaism, 
to  be  so  true  to  the  past  and  to  the  future  that  above 
his  work  there  arose  the  majestic  structure  of  the  king- 
dom of  God.  From  this  point  of  view  the  tokens  of  the 
divine  approval  at  the  baptism  of  Jesus  (Mt.  3:16,  17) 
are  not  only  a  witness  to  Jesus  but  indirectly  they  are 
the  strongest  testimony  to  the  harmony  of  the  teach- 
ings of  John  with  the  thought  of  the  Most  High. 

In  just  what  form  the  mission  of  Jesus  lay  in  His 
own  mind  at  this  time  we  cannot  say,  but  we  may 
hold  with  confidence  that  the  essential  features  of 
His  teaching  and  career  had  risen  above  the  horizon 
of  consciousness,  and  He  knew  that  He  was  the 
Messiah  with  the  relationship  to  the  Most  High,  the 
knowledge  and  the  power  involved  in  that  office. 

The  ritual  initiation  of  His  mission  was  accom- 
plished in  His  baptism.  It  now  remained  to  vindicate 
the  competency  of  Jesus  for  His  work  in  His  own  con- 
sciousness and  in  the  moral  consciousness  of  mankind 
by  the  most  searching  tests  of  His  moral  and  spiritual 
fibre.  The  initiation  of  baptism  was  slight  and  easy 
compared  with  the  initiation  of  temptation.  The 
trial  to  which  Jesus  was  subjected  involved  the  most 
subtile  test  of  which  we  can  conceive.  If  the  Evan- 
gelists simply  imagined  this  narrative,  they  had  such 
an   insight   into   the   depths   of  personality   and   the 


The  hiUiaiioH  of  Jesus  19 

workings  of  motives  that  in  comparison  Avith  them 
^schylus  and  Shakespeare  were  children. 

The  weak  place  in  a  great  soul  is  not  apt  to  be  in 
its  passions.  One  cast  in  the  largest  and  noblest 
mould  may  overcome  the  solicitations  of  the  senses, 
perhaps  not  easily,  but  still  without  a  struggle  which 
shakes  the  fabric  of  the  life.  The  ver}^  greatness  of 
the  spirit  gives  it  power  to  rule  the  flesh.  The  strong- 
est and  most  insidious  temptation  that  can  come  to 
such  a  one  is  to  use  his  great  endowments,  not  for 
sinful  or  unworthy  ends,  but  for  ends  that  fall  short 
of  the  highest  and  noblest.  Such  a  test  involves  the 
intellectual  as  well  as  the  moral  nature,  for  the  temp- 
tation can  only  be  resisted  in  view  of  the  clearest 


Mount  of  Temptation 


The  Mount  of  Temptation  (Jfons  Quarantania) ,ths  traditional  scene  of  Christ's  temptation, 
ia  in  the  rugged  wilderness  of  Judea,  west  uf  the  Jordan  river.  In  its  bare  and  desolate  sides 
are  many  holes  and  caves  which  were  the  homes  of  hermits  in  past  ages. 

mental  apprehension  of  those  ends.  Such  a  test 
involves  a  sympathetic  response  of  the  moral  nature 
to  this  discrimination,  of  such  intensity  and  volume 
that  the  soul  which  meets  it  is  vindicated  as  abso- 
lutely and  totally  sound.  Such  a  test  is  like  the 
hammer  stroke  upon  a  bell.  Every  molecule  in  the 
great  mass  of  metal  must  be  in  right  relation  to  every 
other  molecule,  or  else  the  clear  ringing  note  will  be 
wanting.  It  was  a  test  like  that  which  marked  the 
completion  of  the  initiation  of  Jesus. 


20  The  Great  Ministry 

Coming  to  the  study  of  the  temptation  in  the  hght 
of  such  reflections  we  see  at  once  that  it  reveals  both 
Jesus'  conception  of  the  ends  for  which  His  divine 
powers  should  be  used,  and  His  successful  resistance 
of  the  appeal  to  use  them  for  any  inferior  ends.  He 
would  use  His  powers  unselfishly.  He  would  not 
exert  them  for  Himself,  even  to  save  his  life  (Mt. 
4:3,  4).  He,  who  a  few  days  later  turned  water  into 
wine  for  the  sake  of  others,  would  not  turn  stones 
into  bread  for  the  sake  of  Himself.  He  would  use 
His  powers  to  corroborate  and  reward  faith  but  not 
to  originate  it  (Mt.  4:5-7).  He  Avould  not  throw 
Himself  down  from  the  pinnacle  of  the  temple  that 
men  might  believe  in  Him,  but  He  would  raise  Laza- 
rus from  the  dead  for  the  sake  of  the  sisters  who  be- 
lieved in  Him.  He  would  use  His  divine  power 
to  promote  righteousness,  but  not  as  something  to 
trade  with  to  secure  the  support  of  evil  (Mt.  4:8-10). 
He  would  not  worship  the  Evil  One  for  the  sake  of  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world,  but  He  would  cast  out  devils. 

In  those  days  of  searching,  Jesus  saw  that  divine 
powers  must  be  used  with  complete  unselfishness,  in 
rigid  subordination  to  moral  motives,  and  in  absolute 
devotion  to  righteousness.  And  He  was  so  thorough- 
ly loyal  to  these  exalted  perceptions  that  He  came 
forth  from  the  trial  without  even  the  smell  of  fire  upon 
His  garments. 

In  the  baptism  and  in  the  temptation  the  ritual  and 
actual  initiations  of  Jesus  for  His  work  were  com- 
pleted. In  the  former  He  linked  His  mission  with 
the  long  line  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  in  the  person 
of  their  last  and  greatest  representative;  in  the  latter 
He  vindicated  His  competency  to  be  the  spiritual 
leader  and  Saviour  of  men.  Now  that  He  has  resisted 
every  solicitation  to  use  His  power  unworthily,  He 
uses  it  all  for  the  help  of  tempted  men.  "In  that  he 
himself  hath  suffered  being  tempted,  he  is  able  to 
succor  them  that  are  tempted"  (Heb.  2:18). 


CHAPTER  VI. 
The  Recognition  of  Jesus. 

Jo.   1:19—2:12. 

After  Jesus  returned  from  His  temptation  to  the 
society  of  men,  John  the  Baptist  was  the  first  person 
to  recognize  and  proclaim  Him  as  the  Messiah. 

When  John  baptized  Jesus  he  seems  to  have  had  a 
strong  impression  that  his  relative  was  the  Coming 
One,  whom  he  had  been  proclaiming.  The  circum- 
stances that  attended  the  baptism — the  dove  and  the 
voice — made  this  impression  a  conviction.  Thus  far 
John  had  not  identified  Jesus  unequivocally  with  the 
Messiah,  but  no'v  he  has  no  doubt  whatever  as  to  the 


The  River  Jordan,  near  Jericho. 


From  a  photoiirapli. 


fact.  "John  beareth  witness  of  him,  and  crieth,  sa}'- 
ing.  This  was  he  of  whom  I  said.  He  that  cometh 
after  me  is  become  before  me;  for  he  was  before  me" 
(Jo.  1:15). 

This  witness  John  repeated  when  a  commission  from 
the  Sanhedrin  came  to  him  to  inquire  as  to  his  own 
identity  and  claims.  He  was  perfectly  certain  that 
he  himself  was  not  the  Messiah,  but  he  was  equally 
clear  that  he  was  the  herald  of  the  Messiah,  whom  he 
had  identified  with  Jesus. 

21 


22  TJie  Great  Ministry 

We  must  remember  that  up  to  this  time  John  does 
not  appear  to  have  seen  Jesus  since  the  baptism — an 
interval  of  about  six  weeks.  It  is  clear  that  during 
this  period  John  had  been  reflecting  upon  the  impres- 
sion Jesus  had  made  upon  him,  and  also  that  the 
prophecies  of  Isaiah  had  been  in  his  thought,  for  he 
quotes  from  them,  and  refers  to  them  by  name  in  his 
reply  to  the  Sanhedrin  commission  (Jo.  1:23).  These 
reflections,  and  the  impression  made  upon  him  by  the 
form  and  countenance  of  Jesus,  who  must  have  been 
marked  by  many  traces  of  His  long  inward  struggle, 
gave  a  new  impulse  and  insight  to  John.  His  ideas 
about  the  Messiah  were  revolutionized  in  a  flash.  He 
had  proclaimed  that  the  Coming  One  was  a  stern  judge 
(Mt.  3:11,  12);  he  saw  at  once  that  He  was  far  more 
and  other  than  that.  Perhaps  there  swept  before  his 
memory  the  picture  drawn  by  Isaiah  of  the  suffering 
Servant.  His  thought  took  one  of  those  leaps  which 
only  come  from  a  great  inspiration.  The  only  inci- 
dent in  the  New  Testament  at  all  comparable  with  it 
is  the  superb  spiritual  insight  of  Simon  Peter  (Mt. 
16:16).  The  simple  words  of  John's  magnificent 
recognition  do  not  lend  themselves  to  any  para- 
phrase. When  we  realize  the  process  by  which  he 
had  gained  this  apprehension  every  syllable  becomes 
weighty.  "On  the  morrow  he  seeth  Jesus  coming 
unto  him,  and  saith.  Behold,  the  Lamb  of  God,  that 
taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world!  .  .  .  And  I 
have  seen,  and  have  borne  witness  that  this  is  the 
Son  of  God"  (Jo.  1:29,  34). 

One  of  the  noblest  things  we  know  of  Mahomet  is 
the  incident  related  by  Carlyle.  "Ayesha,  his  young 
favorite  wife,  a  woman  who  indeed  distinguished  her- 
self among  the  Moslem,  by  all  manner  of  qualities, 
through  her  whole  long  life;  this  young  brilliant 
Ayesha  was,  one  day,  questioning  him:  'Now,  am  I 
not  better  than  Kadijah?  She  was  a  widow,  old,  and 
had  lost  her  looks;  you  love  me  better  than  you  did 


The  Recognition  of  Jesus  23 

her?' — 'No,  by  Allah!'  answered  Mahomet.  'No,  by- 
Allah!  She  believed  in  me  when  none  else  would 
believe.  In  the  whole  world  I  had  but  one  friend, 
and  she  was  that! '  "  * 

In  John  the  Baptist,  Jesus  found  the  man  who  be- 
lieved in  Him,  the  man  w^ho  had  the  spiritual  insight 
to  discern  His  nature  and  understand  His  mission. 
The  kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ  was  founded  in  the  earth 
on  the  day  when  John  the  Baptist  proclaimed  that 
Jesus  was  the  Lamb  of  God,  and  the  Son  of  God. 

After  one  great  soul  had  come  to  believe  in  Jesus 
by  such  ways  as  we  have  indicated,  the  winning  of 
other  souls  w^as  comparatively  easy.  In  these  high 
spiritual  things  the  gospel  narrative  fits  into  human 
experiences  on  lower  ranges,  as  the  hand  fits  into  the 
well-worn  glove.  The  testimony  of  the  Baptist  led 
AndreAv,  and  another — perhaps  John,  the  writer  of 
this  gospel — to  seek  Jesus,  and  to  accept  His  invita- 
tion to  spend  the  day  with  Him.  Andrew  in  turn 
introduced  his  brother  Simon  to  Jesus,  and  then 
Philip,  and  Philip  in  turn  Nathanael.  How  natural 
it  is!  How  the  Evangel  fits  into  the  grooves  of  human 
relationships,  of  family  ties,  of  friendly  associations, 
of  human  acquaintance! 

The  significant  thing,  however,  in  the  story,  and 
the  one  we  are  so  apt  to  overlook,  is  that  these  friends 
did  not  impart  to  each  other  the  conviction  that 
Jesus  was  the  Christ.  They  left  Him  to  do  that. 
What  they  did  was  to  bring  their  friends  into  relation- 
ship with  Jesus,  so  that  they  might  see  and  hear  Him. 
How  easy  it  was  for  Him  to  make  His  ow^n  impres- 
sion! The  two  friends  spend  the  day  with  Him.  We 
do  not  know  a  word  of  the  conversation,  but  we  know 
that  the  next  day  Andrew  told  his  brother:  "We 
have  found  the  Messiah."  Jesus  looked  upon  Simon 
and  read  his  character  so  truly  that  the  man's  inner 
self  responded  to  its  Master.  Philip  needed  only  a 
word  to  attach  himself  to  Jesus.     Nathanael  was  so 


24  The  Great  Ministry 

overwhelmed  with  Jesus'  knowledge  of  him  that  his 
conviction  gushed  forth  in  a  great  confession.  Jesus 
did  it  all.     The  very  least  was  the  work  of  men. 

To-day  we  often  say,  Conditions  are  not  the  same. 
We  cannot  bring  men  to  Jesus  to-day,  and  let  Him 
make  His  impression  upon  them.  All  that  men  see 
of  Jesus  is  what  is  revealed  of  Him  in  His  disciples. 
There  is  some  truth  in  such  statements,  but  not  so 
much  as  is  often  supposed.  The  very  best  men  are 
poor  reflections  of  the  Master.  And  if  the  world  is 
to  be  turned  to  Christ  by  the  absolute  Christ-likeness 
of  the  average  Christian  the  enterprise  is  even  more 
hopeless  than  the  most  discouraged  have  believed. 
But  the  truth  is  that  conditions  are  not  essentially 
different  to-day  and  then.  The  essential  thing,  then 
and  now,  is  that  the  disciple,  while  openly  confessing 
his  own  failure  to  represent  Christ  worthily,  and 
lamenting  it,  should  bear  an  honest,  sincere  witness 
as  to  his  own  conviction  about  Christ.  And  in  the 
secret  places  of  his  own  heart  the  man  who  has  been 
led  to  seek  Christ  by  a  human  witness,  as  Andrew  was 
by  the  witness  of  the  Baptist,  or  Philip  by  the  witness 
of  Nathanael,  may  find  Him,  and  receive  his  convic- 
tions directly  from  Him.  The  great  function  of 
Christian  service  is  witness-bearing  to  Jesus  Christ, 
and  in  that  service  we  are  indeed  poor  Christians  if 
our  appreciation  of  Him  and  our  witness  to  Him  do 
not  far  surpass  any  image  of  Him  shown  as  yet  in 
our  own  lives. 

The  miracle  at  the  wedding  feast  at  Cana,  which 
the  Evangelist  puts  into  immediate  connection  with 
the  impression  Jesus  made  upon  those  whom  their 
friends  introduced  to  Him,  illustrates  in  at  least  two 
ways  His  attitude  toward  men.  On  the  one  hand,  it 
shows  His  unselfishness.  He  who  a  few  days  before 
would  not  exercise  His  divine  power  to  transform 
stones  into  bread  to  appease  His  hunger,  transformed 
water  into  wine  to  save  His  hosts  from  the  chagrin  of 


The  Recognition  of  Jesus 


25 


having  provided  insufficient  entertainment.  And,  on 
the  other  hand,  his  readiness  to  work  a  miracle  for 
such  a  purpose  conclusively  shows  the  extent  and 
delicacy  of  His  sympathy.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
He  should  exert  His  divine  power  to  restore  Lazarus 
to  the  stricken  sisters.    It  would  be  a  hard  heart  that 


Cana  of  Galilee. 

Tlie  Greek  church  with  the  dome  on  the  extreme  left  of  the  picture  covers  the  supposed  site 
ol  the  house  in  which  the  marriage  feast  took  place. 


would  not  respond  to  such  a  call,  but,  when  He 
wrought  a  miracle  to  save  his  host  from  the  mortifica- 
tion of  a  failure  in  etiquette,  He  manifested  a  delicacy 
of  sympathy  and  insight  which  makes  us  believe 
that  no  human  need  or  even  embarrassment  is  beyond 
the  range  of  His  care.  No  wonder  that  John  said  of 
this  miracle  that  it  "manifested  his  glory;  and  his 
disciples  believed  on  him"  (Jo.  2:11). 


CHAPTER  VII. 

The  Beginning  of  the  Public  Ministry. 

Jo.  2:13—3:21. 

Thus  far  the  influence  of  Jesus  had  been  confined  to 
a  very  narrow,  we  might  almost  call  it  a  home  circle. 
The  young  men  who  attached  themselves  to  Him  were 
mutual  friends,  and  the  miracle  at  the  wedding  feast 
in  Cana,  at  which  it  appears  that  the  entire  group  of 
the  relatives  and  acquaintances  of  Jesus  were  present, 
only  appealed  to  this  small  company  of  intimates. 

It  is  always  an  important  day  for  a  young  man  con- 
cerning whose  powers  his  close  friends  entertain  a 
high  estimate,  when  he  goes  forth  into  actual  life. 
He  will  not  find  the  world  so  sympathetic  and  believ- 


The  Temple  Area  in  the  Time  of  Christ. 
From  Selous'  picture  of  Jerusalem  in  its  Grandeur. 

ing  as  the  home  circle  has  been.  He  will  have  to 
prove  his  capacity;  nothing  will  be  taken  on  trust. 
And,  if  he  makes  claims  for  himself,  they  will  be 
vigorously  contested.  In  the  narrative  before  us  we 
see  Jesus,  as  a  young  man,  going  forth  into  actual 
life  to  meet  the  verdict  of  the  world  upon  Himself. 
After  the  wedding  there  seems  to  have  been  a  kind 
26 


The  Beginning  of  the  Public  Ministry  2  7 

of  family  reunion  at  Capernaum  (Jo.  2:12),  and 
immediately  following  that,  Jesus  went  up  to  the 
great  national  feast  of  the  passover  at  Jerusalem. 
An  occasion  soon  presented  itself  in  which  He  stood 
forth  as  the  central  figure.  There  was  nothing  forced 
about  the  situation.  What  He  saw  in  the  temple 
aroused  His  indignation,  and  He  could  not  be  true  to 
Himself  and  refrain  from  a  protest.  We  need  not 
suppose  that  there  was  any  intentional  sacrilege  on 
the  part  of  the  priests  in  allowing  the  sheep  and  oxen 
for  sacrifice,  and  the  tables  of  the  money  changers  to 
obtrude  into  the  court  of  the  Gentiles.  It  was  a 
great  convenience  to  the  Jews  from  a  distance  to  buy 
their  offerings  and  to  exchange  their  foreign  coins  near 
the  temple.  The  encroachment  upon  the  court  prob- 
ably had  been  gradual,  and  the  slow  growth  of  the 
custom  had  blinded  the  eyes  of  the  authorities  to  its 
moral  significance.  It  was  an  illustration  of  how 
easily  a  practice,  perfectly  defensible  in  itself,  may 
become  intolerable,  because  of  the  way  it  encroaches 
upon  and  supersedes  a  nobler  use.  So  now  business 
may  encroach  upon  the  day  of  worship,  or  purely 
commercial  standards  upon  the  sanctities  of  the 
home.  Jesus  felt  at  once  an  intense  moral  revolt 
against  this  sacrilegious  use  of  God's  house.  His 
conduct  in  driving  out  the  sheep  and  oxen,  and  over- 
turning the  tables  of  the  money  changers  was  an  act 
against  which  even  those  most  seriously  affected  felt 
that  no  protest  was  possible.  They  did  not  attempt 
to  defend  the  practice,  they  only  questioned  His  par- 
ticular authority  to  institute  this  necessary  reform. 
The  reply  of  Jesus  to  this  question  could  hardly  have 
been  understood  by  those  to  whom  it  was  addressed 
(Jo.  2:19).  His  answer  was  the  instant  overflowing 
of  His  Messianic  consciousness.  Subsequent  events, 
however,  were  to  make  His  defense  perfectly  clear  to 
His  disciples  and  to  the  world  (Jo.  2:22). 

The  record  appears  to  indicate  that  the  cleansing 


28  The  Great  Ministry 

of  the  temple  was  followed  by  some  "signs"  concern- 
ing which  we  are  not  informed,  that  inclined  many  to 
believe  on  Him.  In  the  narrative,  however,  describ- 
ing the  interview  with  Nicodemus  we  have  a  large 
and  deep  insight  as  to  Jesus'  conception  of  His  mis- 
sion and  the  principles  that  controlled  His  subse- 
quent action. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  Nicodemus  came 
to  our  Lord  by  night  through  cowardice.  He  ap- 
pears to  have  been  actuated  by  an  honest  desire  to 
know  more  about  Jesus  before  committing  himself  to 
His  cause.  Certainly  his  subsequent  course  shows  no 
want  of  courage  (Jo.  7:50,51 ;  19:39).  Jesus  struck 
at  once  at  the  heart  of  the  difficulty  that  a  master 
in  Israel  would  feel  as  to  His  message.  Nicodemus 
naturally  thought  that  one  who,  out  of  the  heart  of 
Judaism,  proclaimed  the  kingdom  of  God,  would  be 
eager  to  grant  special  privileges  to  a  man  who  stood 
as  high  as  himself  in  the  nation.  In  the  first  sentence 
of  Jesus  there  is  a  distinct  reminiscence  of  the  message 
of  John  the  Baptist,  which  Jesus  had  endorsed  by 
receiving  baptism  at  his  hands.  John  had  declared 
that  Abrahamic  descent  did  not  qualify  one  for  mem- 
bership in  the  kingdom  of  God,  but  that  personal 
righteousness,  springing  out  of  repentance,  was 
requisite.  Now  Jesus  says  that  a  radical  reconstruc- 
tion of  character,  such  as  is  implied  in  the  figure  of  a 
new  birth,  is  essential.  Nicodemus  was  willing  to  go 
back  to  Abraham  for  his  title  to  enter  the  kingdom  of 
God.  Jesus  said  he  must  go  back  further  than  that; 
he  must  go  back  to  God.  The  only  heredity  that 
avails  in  the  kingdom  of  God  is  an  immediate  filial 
relationship  to  God  Himself.  Jesus  did  not  attempt 
to  explain  the  means  by  which  this  mighty  change 
was  wrought  in  the  souls  of  men.  He  compares  the 
action  of  God's  spirit  to  the  movement  of  the  wind. 
The  point  of  the  comparison  is  the  mystery  of  the 
wind,    not    its    capriciousness    or    uncertainty;     for 


The  Beginning  of  the  Public  Ministry  29 

nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that  the  air  is 
always  in  movement,  however  Httle  we  may  under- 
stand its  laws. 

And  yet,  a  deeper  study  of  this  conversation  reveals 
that  Jesus  answered  the  very  question  that  lay  behind 
the  thought  of  Nicodemus.  He  did  not  tell  him  the 
precise  philosophy  of  the  great  spiritual  change  upon 
Avhich  He  was  insisting— " How  can  these  things  be?" 
— but  He  did  tell  him,  in  no  ambiguous  words,  how 
he,  and  all  men,  might  experience  this  change.  He 
told  Nicodemus  that  the  filial  relationship  to  God  was 
formed  between  a  human  heart  and  God,  when  the 
soul  of  man  entertained  toward  Jesus  Himself  the 
attitude  of  loving  self-surrender,  which  is  so  inade- 
quately represented  by  our  English  words  "belief" 
and  "believe."  Martin  Luther  used  to  call  the 
answer  of  Jesus  to  Nicodemus  "the  little  Bible.  "  He 
declared  that  that  single  sentence  was  enough  to  save 
the  world.  What  Jesus  said  was,  God  so  loved  the 
world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son  that  who- 
soever commits  himself  in  loving  surrender  to  Him 
might  have  eternal  life.  He  has  just  been  speaking 
of  a  divine  life  issuing  in  a  new  birth.  It  is  mys- 
terious, He  has  said,  but  there  is  nothing  capricious 
or  uncertain  about  it.  It  is  gained  by  loving  self- 
surrender  to  Me — the  Son  of  God.  Through  Me  the 
filial  relationship  with  God  is  established.  The  life 
of  God — "eternal  life" — enters  the  human  soul,  and 
the  soul  itself  is  conformed  to  the  principle  of  a 
divine  heredity. 

Two  things  especially  reward  attention  in  this  con- 
nection. One  is  that  the  claims  of  Jesus  with  refer- 
ence to  His  own  nature  become  most  impressive  not 
when  they  are  explicitly  stated,  but  when,  as  in  this 
conversation,  they  are  seen  to  underlie  and  give 
consistence  to  the  whole  order  of  thought.  Nothing 
that  could  be  said  about  Jesus,  or  that  He  could  say 
about  Himself,  could  be  so  impressive  as  the  majestic 


30  The  Great  Ministry 

assumption  that  filial  relationship  to  the  Most  High 
is  effected  by  loving  self-surrender  to  Jesus. 

Another  significant  thing  is  that  at  the  very  out- 
set of  His  public  ministry  the  great  normative  ideas 
of  Jesus  about  the  kingdom  of  God,  His  own  mission 
and  Himself  were  distinct  and  complete.  Whatever 
development  there  may  have  been  in  His  thought 
took  place  before  He  entered  upon  His  public  Avork. 
Indeed,  we  go  back  to  that  conversation  with  Nico- 
demus  for  the  clearest  light  upon  some  of  His  later 
utterances. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
True   Religion   and   True   Worship. 

Jo.  3:22—4:42. 

Following  Jesus'  interview  with  Nicodemus,  the 
Evangelist  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the  state  of  mind  of 
John  the  Baptist,  now  that  Jesus  was  actually  enter- 
ing upon  His  public  ministry.  This  glimpse  is 
entirely  creditable  to  John.  It  enhances  the  high 
esteem  of  his  character  arising  from  a  study  of  the 
reports  of  his  sermons  and  of  his  previous  attitude 
toward  Jesus.  Even  admitting  that  the  passage  Jo. 
3:31-35  is  a  reflection  of  the  author  of  the  gospel 
rather  than  a  summary  of  the  witness  of  John,  his 
undoubted  testimony  to  Jesus  (3:27-30)  indicates 
penetrating  spiritual  insight  and  an  absence  of  self- 
conceit  which  are  the  unfailing  marks  of  a  great 
nature. 

The  opposition  aroused  by  Jesus'  cleansing  of  the 
temple,  which  was  sharpened  by  the  increase  of  His 
followers  (4:1,  2),  led  Him  to  withdraw  from  the 
neighborhood  of  Jerusalem,  and  return  to  the  district 
of  His  boyhood.  On  His  way  through  Samaria  to 
Galilee  there  occurred  an  episode  which  shows  how  a 
human  soul  which  at  almost  every  point  was  in 
sharp  contrast  with  the  spirit  of  Nicodemus,  was  led 
to  recognize  Him. 

Nicodemus,  like  the  merchant  seeking  goodly  pearls 
(Mt.  13:45,  46),  came  to  Jesus  with  a  clear  intent; 
the  woman  of  Samaria,  like  the  man  who  found  the 
hidden  treasure  (Mt.  13:44),  met  our  Lord  by  accident. 
Nicodemus  was  proud  of  his  lineage  and  position, 
and  probably  had  led  a  clean  life;  the  woman  of 
Samaria  was  an  evident  sinner,  and  knew  that  she 
had  nothing  to  exult  in.  There  was  something  a 
trifle  hard  and  austere  about  Nicodemus,  whose  re- 

31 


32 


The  Great  Ministry 


spectability  and  intellectuality  perhaps  had  alienated 
him  somewhat  from  a  quick  sympathy  with  the  or- 
dinary run  of  human  experience;  the  woman  of  Sa- 
maria, like  those  who  are  most  tempted  through  their 
affections,  was  responsive  to  every  variation  of 
thought  and   feeHng  in  those  about  her.     The  truth 

that     Nicodemus     needs 


r 


; 


it  i  Sf-'A   y  » 


■iiiinmr- x^_^,.  L..,  ^i| 


— '-=,..>/'_3^" 


is  the  imperative  state- 
ment of  the  necessity  of 
a  new  life:  the  woman 
of  Samaria  knows  that 
through  the  self-knowl- 
edge which  has  come  in 
scattered  moments  of  re- 
flection. The  truth  she 
needs  is  some  knowl- 
edge of  "the  Father" 
and  of  His  gift  that  will 
be  like  a  pure  fountain 
in   her  heart. 

If  the  author  of  the 
fourth  gospel  had  done 
nothing  more  than  to 
hang  in  the  gallery  of 
human  memory  the  por- 
trait of  the  sagacious 
and  upright  master  of  Israel  and  of  the  affectionate 
and  sinful  daughter  of  Samaria,  who  both  came  to 
a  recognition  of  Jesus,  he  would  have  rendered  an 
inestimable  service  to  the  interpretation  of  the 
gospel,  and  to  the  promotion  of  the  spiritual  life. 
The  types  are  extreme,  and  between  them  there  lies 
the  entire  range  of  possible  human  experience.  The 
universality  of  the  Christian  faith  hardly  needs  any 
other  vindication. 

The  tact  and  insight  of  Jesus,  and  His  success  in 
making  this  woman  share  His  own  spiritual  eleva- 
tion,   have   been   generally   recognized,   not   only  by 


The  Vault  and  Mouth  of  Jacob's  Well. 

The  mouth  of  the  well  is  now  several  fcft 
below  the  surface  of  the  ground  in  a  small 
vaulted  chamber.  The  well  is  now  about  sev- 
enty-five feet  deep,  although  originally  it  was 
much  deeper. 


True  Religion  and  Tnie  Worship  2)Z 

devout  Christians,  but  by  students  of  life  and  litera- 
ture. We  feel,  as  we  ponder  the  narrative  and  come 
to  sympathize  with  the  point  of  view  of  Jesus  and 
the  woman,  and  then  trace  the  order  of  thought  and 
the  fluctuations  of  feeling  in  both  minds,  that  in 
Jesus  we  are  brought  into  contact  with  a  knowledge 
of  the  human  soul  and  of  God  that  simply  encompasses 
us.  It  sweeps  so  far  beneath  and  over  our  concep- 
tions that  its  orbit  instead  of  finding  a  limitation  in 
our  horizon  expands  it.  Countless  readers  of  this 
chapter  have  arisen  from  it  asking  the  question  that 
flew  unbidden,  through  a  swift  spiritual  intuition,  to 
the  lips  of  this  woman:    "Can  this  be  the  Christ?" 

And  yet,  though  there  is  such  contrariety  in  the 
circumstances,  character,  and  disposition  of  Nicode- 
mus  and  the  woman  of  Samaria,  there  is  an  under- 
lying unity  in  the  message  of  Jesus  to  both.  He  did 
not  tell  Nicodemus  how  the  life  of  God  entered  a 
human  soul,  but  He  told  him  that  he  could  gain  that 
life  by  loving  self-surrender  to  Himself,  the  Son  of 
God.  Through  the  channel  of  that  relationship  to 
Himself  there  would  flow  into  his  soul  the  "eternal 
life. "  The  message  to  the  woman,  dissimilar  though 
it  was  in  figure  and  form,  was  not  different.  He 
spoke  to  her  of  the  gift  of  God,  a  satisfying  fountain 
of  eternal  life  in  the  heart,  which  He  would  give  to 
the  one  asking  for  it  (Jo.  4:14).  There  are  different 
metaphors  in  the  two  conversations,  but  the  reality 
is  the  same. 

In  our  study  of  the  conversation  with  Nicodemus 
we  saw  how  there  underlies  it  a  majestic  assumption 
as  to  the  nature  of  Jesus.  The  same  assumption 
underlies  this  conversation.  In  the  interview  with 
Nicodemus  there  is  a  clear  note  of  the  universality  of 
the  offer  of  eternal  life  (3:16),  but  in  this  interview 
that  note  sounds,  if  possible,  even  more  clearly 
(4:10). 

The  attempt  of  the  woman  to  divert  the  thought 


34  The  Great  Ministry 

of  Jesus  into  a  new  channel  (4:19,  20)  brings  into 
view  an  unexpected  sequence  of  His  message  as  to  the 
eternal  life.  Only  that  worship  is  acceptable  to  God 
which  is  rendered  "in  spirit  and  truth."  "The 
Father"  must  be  worshiped  by  sons,  by  those  who 
have  the  filial  spirit,  which  is  the  manifestation  of  the 
"eternal  life"  in  the  soul  of  man.  All  questions  of 
time  or  place  or  manner  are  trivial  and  irrelevant  in 
comparison  with  the  question,  Have  I  the  spirit 
which  would  make  any  worship  of  mine  acceptable 
to  God?  We  can  hardly  imagine  a  stronger. emphasis 
upon  the  inwardness  of  religion.  All  forms,  cere- 
monies, places,  sink  into  insignificance  in  comparison 
with  the  utterance  of  the  human  heart  which  has 
received  the  "eternal  life."  The  entire  value  of 
these  externals  is  dependent  upon  their  serving  as 
media  through  which  the  filial  heart  expresses  its 
adoration  of  "the  Father." 

True  religion  is  the  "eternal  life"  in  the  soul  of 
man;    true  worship  is  the  expression  of  that  life. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Jesus'  Own  View  of  His  Mission. 

Mt.  4:12-17;  Mk.  1:14,  15;  Lu.  4:14-30;  Jo.  4:43-54. 

The  imprisonment  of  John  the  Baptist  exerted  a 
strong  influence  over  the  course  of  the  ministry  of 
Jesus.  On  the  one  hand,  in  connection  with  the  hos- 
tility that  had  been  aroused  against  Him  in  Judea, 
it  led  Him  to  Avithdraw  into  Galilee,  making  His  head- 
quarters in  Capernaum;  on  the  other  hand,  it  led 
Him  to  take  up  the  precise  message  of  John — "Repent 
ye;  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand" — and 
make  it  the  burden  of  His  preaching  (comp.  Mt.  3:2 
and  4:17),  with  the  significant  addition,  which  Mark 
has  recorded,  "and  believe  in  the  gospel"  (1:15). 
These  facts  throw  much  light  upon  the  genetic  rela- 
tionship between  the  message  of  John  and  that  of 
Jesus.  Jesus  endorsed  the  message  of  John  by 
receiving  baptism  at  his  hands,  and,  when  He  came 
to  preach,  He  added  His  own  distinctive  contribu- 
tion to  what  He  had  appropriated  from  His  relative 
and  forerunner.  From  this  time  the  mission  of  Jesus 
swings  entirely  clear  from  that  of  John.  The  mes- 
sage and  work  of  John  are  incorporated  into  the 
ministry  of  Jesus,  who,  on  the  basis  of  the  prophetic 
teaching  of  Israel,  builds  up  the  majestic  fabric  of 
what  we  know  as  Christianity. 

The  sermon  in  the  synagogue  at  Nazareth  com- 
pletely establishes  the  correctness  of  this  view.  His 
reading  of  the  famous  passage  in  Isaiah,  which  was 
universally  construed  as  Messianic,  and  His  declara- 
tion,, "To-day  hath  this  scriptiire  been  fulfilled  in 
your  ears,"  was  not  only  an  implied  claim  that  He 
was  the  Messiah,  which  His  hearers  appear  to  have 
understood  perfectly,  but  it  also  indicated  His  own 
conception  of  His  mission  as  the  Messiah. 

35 


36  The  Great  Muiisiry 

"He  anointed  me  to  preach  good  tidings  to  the  poor: 
He  hath  sent  me  to  proclaim  release  to  the  captives. 
And  recovering  of  sight  to  the  blind, 
To  set  at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised, 
To  proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord." 

— Lu.  4:18,  19. 

We  now  see  clearly  the  new  strand  which  Jesus 
wove  with  the  teaching  of  the  Baptist.  John  per- 
petuated the  message  of  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  that 
personal  righteousness  was  the  only  ground  of  accept- 
ance with  God.  Jesus  perpetuated  the  message  of 
Isaiah  that  God  provides  for  man  a  redemption  which 
he  is  not  competent  to  achieve  for  himself.  .  Both  of 
these  messages  run  through  the  historic  discipline  of 
Israel.  The  first  culminates  in  the  great  declaration 
of  the  law  of  Jehovah,  the  second  in  the  offerings  for 
sin  looking  forward  to  the  Messianic  fulfilment.  Jesus 
emphasized  the  first  as  strongly  as  the  Baptist,  but 
He  did  what  the  Baptist  did  not  and  could  not  do,  He 
preached  a  Gospel,  a  message  not  of  condemnation, 
but  of  good  tidings  (Jo.  3:17).  He  could  declare 
that  a  redemption  from  sin  to  righteousness,  more 
complete  than  any  commandment  keeping,  was  at- 
tainable because  of  what  He  Himself  could  do  for  man. 

The  conception  of  sin  which  underlies  Jesus'  an- 
nouncement of  His  mission  is  most  important.  The 
quotation  from  Isaiah  shows  that  He  regards  it  as 
something  foreign  to  the  true  nature  of  man.  It  is 
a  povert}?-  which  deprives  him  of  his  rightful  resources; 
it  is  a  captivity  which  binds  his  faculties;  it  is  a 
blindness  which  closes  his  eyes  and  shuts  out  the 
whole  beautiful  world;  it  is  a  wound  that  cripples. 
And,  conversely,  the  purpose  of  Jesus  is  to  restore 
men  to  themselves;  to  make  the  poor  rich;  to  release 
the  captives;  to  restore  sight;  to  make  the  cripple 
whole.  In  the  thought  of  Jesus  His  mission  is  eman- 
cipation, restoration,  deliverance.  The  Gospel  is  glad 
tidings  to  those  who  are  poor,  captive,  blind  and 
crippled  by  the  power  of  sin. 


Jesus '  Own  View  of  His  Mission 


37 


We  have  gone  a  long  way  in  straight  thinking 
about  the  most  important  problems  of  human  life 
when  we  look  at  sin  and  redemption  from  this  point 
of  view  of  Jesus.  Sin  does  not  enrich,  expand,  or 
ennoble  human  life;  it  makes  it  poor  and  small  and 
mean.  Sin  is  acting  as  we  were  not  made  to  act.  If 
you  bend  a  finger  backward  until  the  joint  snaps,  you 
are  sinning  against  the  lav/ 
and  nature  of  that  finger. 
That  is  what  we  do  with 
our  faculties  and  powers 
when  we  make  them  the 
"servants  of  sin"  (Rom.  6: 
20).  And  we  put  the  em- 
phasis where  it  belongs, 
and  the  mission  of  Jesus 
in  the  right  perspective, 
when  we  see  that  salvation 
means  power,  health  and 
emancipation  from  all  of 
the  forces  alien  to  man's 
real  nature. 

But  there  was  more  even 
than  this  in  the  discourse 
at  Nazareth.  The  course  of  thought  seems  to  be 
this:  Jesus  imagines  a  critic  of  His  claim  as  saying, 
"If  you  are  the  Messiah  do  here  some  of  the  wonders 
you  are  reported  to  have  done  at  Capernaum.  "  He 
replies  to  this  demand  by  citing  the  incidents  in  the 
lives  of  Elijah  and  Elisha  when  they  wrought  miracles 
of  help  for  foreigners,  though  there  were  many  equally 
helpless  and  worthy  in  Israel  (1  Ki.  17:8-16;  2  Ki. 
5:1-14).  This  reply  reminds  us  of  the  teaching  of 
John  the  Baptist  that  the  blessings  of  the  kingdom 
are  not  given  by  favoritism  to  a  specific  people,  that 
Abrahamic  descent  confers  no  title  to  them  (Mt.  3:9). 
Thus  Jesus  makes  His  answer  to  a  criticism  that  was 
constantly  present  in  the  minds  of  His  townsfolk — 


The  Cliff  at  Nazareth. 
One  of  the  sites  pointed  out  as  the  clifiof 

precipitation. 


38  The  Great  Ministry 

who  had  known  Him  from  youth,  and  could  only 
associate  Him  with  the  village  carpenter  shop — an 
implication  that  His  mission  is  to  the  whole  race  of 
mankind.  The  "whosoever"  of  the  interview  with 
Nicodemus  (Jo.  3:16)  is  not  a  mere  rhetorical  flourish. 
At  the  very  beginning  of  His  ministry  Jesus  struck 
the  note  of  universality,  and  we  hear  it  clearly  again 
in  this  early  discourse  at  Nazareth. 

The  mission  of  Jesus,  as  He  conceived  it,  was  to 
liberate  the  souls  of  all  men  from  the  captivity  of  sin. 


CHAPTER  X. 

The  Early  Self-revelation  of  Jesus. 
Mk.  1:16-45;  Lu.  5:1-11. 

After  Nazareth,  the  town  of  the  boyhood  of  Jesus, 
had  rejected  Him,  He  made  His  headquarters  in  the 
rich  and  populous  city  of  Capernaum,  which  was  sit- 
uated on  the  northern  shore  of  the  beautiful  Lake  of 
Gennesaret.  This  lake  is  about  thirteen  miles  long 
and  less  than  seven  wide.  The  great  caravan  route 
from  the  East  to  the  Mediterranean  ran  along  the 
northern  coast,  probably  near  Capernaum,  and  several 


Tiberias  and  the  Sea  of  Galilee. 

considerable  cities  and  hundreds  of  villas  of  wealthy 
officials  and  merchants  were  scattered  along  its  shores. 
What  might  be  called  the  native  or  Hebrew  basis  of 
the  population  demonstrated  in  the  great  struggle  with 
Rome,  A.D.  66-70,  that  it  had  unusual  vigor,  courage 
and  devotion.  The  foreign  elements  in  this  region, 
whether  Greek,  Roman  or  Asiatic,  represented  wealth 
and  culture  of  no  ordinary  kind.  Altogether  Galilee. 
was  probably  one  of  the  most  attractive  sections  in 
Western  Asia.  The  people  were  of  sound  stock,  and 
the  region  was  a  center  of  a  rich  and  cosmopolitan 
civilization. 

39 


40  The  Great  Ministry 

One  of  the  first  steps  of  Jesus  after  He  had  estab- 
lished Himself  at  Capernaum  was  to  select  the  men 
who  were  to  be  His  most  intimate  companions  and 
helpers  in  His  widening  ministry.  He  naturally 
turned  to  the  little  group  of  acquaintances  He  had 
made  a  few  months  before.  Some  of  them  were  en- 
gaged in  the  fishing  industry  upon  the  lake.  These 
He  sought  out  and  asked  them  to  attach  themselves 
permanently  to  Him.  The  heartiness  with  which 
they  responded  to  this  request  indicates  the  deep 
impression  He  made  upon  them  at  the  beginning  of 
the  acquaintance,  an  account  of  which  is  preserved 
in  Mark's  gospel  (Mk.  1:16-20). 

It  is  a  mistake  to  represent  these  disciples,  or,  for 
that  matter,  any  of  the  original  Twelve,  as  vagabonds, 
or  as  poor  men,  representing  the  proletariat  of  Galilee. 
On  the  contrary,  they  belonged  to  the  self-respecting 
middle  class  which  was  the  backbone  of  the  popula- 
tion, and  they  came  from  households  that  appear  to 
have  been  comparatively  well-to-do.  These  men  may 
have  lacked  the  social  polish  that  was  common  among 
the  elite  of  the  Graeco-Roman  circles  of  Galilee;  like 
Chalmers  and  Carlyle  they  never  lost  the  burr  of 
their  mother-tongue  (Mk.  14:70)  but  they  were 
sturdy,  sensible  and  trustworthy. 

The  effect  upon  these  men  of  the  great  catch  of 
fishes  which  they  made  b}''  following  the  directions  of 
Jesus,  seems  to  have  been  twofold.  The  fact  that 
they  had  toiled  with  all  their  skill  throughout  the 
night  fruitlessly,  but  now,  in  obe3dng  Him,  had  been 
wonderfully  successful,  taught  them  in  a  flash  that 
in  abandoning  their  own  resources  for  His  sake  they 
had  allied  themselves  with  infinite  riches.  The  more 
important  thing,  however,  was  that  Peter  saw  at 
once  in  this  surprising  event  such  a  disclosure  of  the 
divine  nature  of  Jesus  that  he  came  to  a  profound 
apprehension  of  his  own  moral  unworthiness.  That 
is    the    precise    connection    between    the    wonderful 


The  Early  Self -revelation  of  Jesus  4 1 

catch  of  fishes  and  the  cry  of  Peter:  "Depart  from 
me;  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O  Lord"  (Lu.  5:8).  And 
yet  we  find  that  Peter  and  the  rest,  "when  they  had 
brought  their  boats  to  land,  .  .  .  left  all  and 
followed  him"    (Lu.  5:11). 

How  marvelously  true  this  is  to  the  common 
Christian  experience!  The  disclosure  of  Christ's 
nature,  which  at  first  repels  because  it  reveals  men 
to  themselves  in  their  unworthiness,  speaks  to  some- 
thing so  deep  and  vital  in  the  human  spirit  that  they 
cannot  go  from  Him.  The  first  repulsion  gives  way 
to  an  irresistible  attraction,  and  they  are  glad  to 
leave  all  and  follow  Him.  Henceforth  the  four  men 
who  shared  this  experience  identified  themselves 
indissolubly  with  the  fortunes  of  Jesus. 

Immediately,  perhaps  the  same  day,  the  ministry 
of  Jesus  widened  to  its  full  extent  in  Galilee.  The 
events  crowd  upon  one  another.  The  discourse  in 
the  synagogue  at  Capernaum,  during  which  He  made 
the  impression  that,  in  contrast  with  the  religious 
teachers  of  the  time,  who  interpreted  the  words  of 
others.  He  spoke  with  original  authorit}^  (Mk.  1:22); 
the  command  to  the  unclean  spirit  (vs.  25);  the 
healing  of  Simon's  wife's  mother  (vss.  29-31),  and  the 
restoration  to  health  of  many  afflicted  persons  (vss. 
32-34)  were  all  events  that  might  have  imparted  to 
the  people  the  conviction  that  had  so  powerfully 
impressed  Peter  and  his  companions  that  they  had 
left  all  to  follow  Him.  But  evidently  this  impression 
was  not  made  upon  the  masses.  Curiosity,  gratitude, 
and  a  desire  for  further  benefits  were  aroused,  but 
not  that  deeper  moral  conviction  which  attaches  the 
soul  to  Christ.  The  occurrences  of  the  following 
days  seem  to  have  widened  the  circle  of  these  emo- 
tions (vss.  35-45)  without  deepening  them.  The  real 
problem  was  to  make  the  conviction  and  experience 
of  Peter  and  his  companions  the  conviction  and 
experience  of  all  those  to  whom  similar  disclosures 


42  The  Great  Ministry 

were  granted.  A  little  later  Jesus  explained  the 
comparative  failure  of  His  mission  by  a  parable 
drawn  from  the  usual  disappointments  of  farmers 
(Mt.  13:3-9,  18-23).  The  point  is  that  the  seed  tests 
the  soil  as  truly  as  the  soil  tests  the  seed. 

Already,  at  the  very  outset  of  Jesus'  ministry,  it  was 
becoming  evident  that  teaching  and  deeds  of  mercy, 
even  when  accompanied  by  the  most  remarkable  dis- 
plays of  divine  authority,  were  not  sufficient  to  win 
the  deep  and  permanent  allegiance  of  the  masses  of 
mankind.  Only  the  fullest  revelation  of  the  divine 
nature  could  do  that. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

The  Fidelity  of  Jesus  to  Himself. 

Mk.  2:1-22. 

Inevitably,  the  nature,  the  ideas  and  the  purposes 
of  Jesus  led  to  words  and  actions  that  aroused  hos- 
tility. It  was  simply  impossible  for  Jesus  to  be  true 
to  Himself  and  avoid  this.  There  are  some  differences 
that  no  tact  or  diplomacy  can  smooth  over  or  obliter- 
ate. Such  were  the  differences  between  Jesus  and 
the  ideas  and  practices  of  the  Roman-Hebrew  world 
of  Palestine.  These  differences  probably  would  have 
been  as  marked  if  He  had  appeared  in  the  midst  of 
any  other  civilization,  but  those  which  developed  in 
Palestine  are  thoroughly  typical  of  the  antagonism 
between  Jesus  and  what  the  writer  of  the  fourth 
gospel  calls  "the  world,"  by  which  he  means  the 
organized  principles  and  practices  of  men. 

In  Galilee  this  antagonism  to  Jesus  was  based  on 
three  grounds,  which  are  vividly  brought  before  us  in 
the  second  chapter  of  Mark's  gospel  (vss.  1-22). 

In  the  first  place  the  leaders  of  the  people,  those 
who  by  their  position  and  influence  set  the  tone  of 
public  opinion,  resented  at  once  and  bitterly  His 
claim  to  exercise  the  divine  prerogative  to  forgive 
sins.  The  issue  arose  naturally  in  the  course  of 
events.  When  the  friends  of  the  paralytic  let  him 
down  through  the  roof  of  the  Oriental  house  into  the 
presence  of  Jesus,  He  resolved  to  give  this  poor 
cripple  the  largest  of  all  blessings.  Jesus  was  very 
far  from  teaching  that  all  suffering  could  be  attrib- 
buted  to  specific  sins  (Jo.  9:3),  but  some  diseases 
certainly  can  be  so  traced.  And  this  man's  paralysis 
was  probably  an  instance  of  that  fact.  Jesus,  there- 
fore, went  back  of  the  disease  to  that  of  which  it 
was  the  token,  and  said,  "Son,  thy  sins  are  forgiven." 

43 


44  The  Great  Ministry 

There  was  nothing  strained  or  forced  about  this  decla- 
ration, which  indicated,  as  the  scribes  at  once  saw, 
that  He  attributed  to  Himself  a  divine  prerogative. 
The  assumption  of  Jesus  was  as  congruous  to  His 
consciousness  as  the  bestowal  of  an  incredibly  large 
gift  would  be  to  the  consciousness  of  the  possessor  of 
enormous  wealth. 

Jesus  at  once  accepted  the  unspoken  challenge. 
He  recognized  the  soundness  of  the  reasoning  of  His 
critics  that  His  declaration  to  the  paralytic  was  equiv- 
alent to  an  assertion  of  His  own  deity.  It  is  so,  He 
said.  That  is  the  claim  I  make;  and  to  vindicate  the 
rightfulness  of  the  claim  He  healed  the  paralytic.  In 
the  very  nature  of  the  case,  Jesus'  critics  could  not  tell 
whether  His  claim  to  forgive  sins  was  anything  more 
than  an  empty  boast.  They  had  no  conceivable 
tests  to  apply  in  that  realm,  but  they  could  tell 
whether  or  not  the  paralytic  had  been  healed,  and  the 
manifestation  by  Jesus  of  the  divine  power  in  one 
realm  was  an  evidence  that  He  had  the  divine  pre- 
rogative in  another.  It  is  not  in  the  least  surprising 
that  this  claim  and  its  vindication  should  have 
aroused  against  Jesus  an  unrelenting  hostility.  He 
was  not  the  Messiah  of  whom  they  had  dreamed, 
and  the  very  conclusiveness  of  the  evidence  that  He 
had  the  prerogative  of  the  Most  High  embittered 
them  the  more. 

The  hostility  that  grew  out  of  the  relations  of  Jesus 
with  men  on  the  broad  plane  of  their  humanity  was 
equally  inevitable.  Just  as  His  consciousness  of  His 
own  nature  and  power  was  certain  to  reveal  itself, 
so  was  the  point  of  view  from  which  He  looked  at 
humanity,  and  the  standard  of  values  by  which  he 
appraised  men.  Under  all  sorts  of  civilizations  men 
have  estimated  their  fellows  by  purely  adventitious 
standards — by  their  birth,  or  wealth  or  supposed 
wisdom.  Under  the  dominion  of  these  notions  men 
are  divided  into  classes,  designated  by  certain  labels, 


The  Fidelity  of  Jesus  to  Himself  45 

and  are  adjudged  as  worthy  or  not,  according  to  these 
distinctions.  Jesus'  estimate  of  men  was  entirely- 
independent  of  such  considerations.  He  saw  the 
intrinsic  worth  of  the  human  personaHty  because  it 
was  created  in  the  divine  image.  The  usual  discrimi- 
nations that  prevail  among  men  were  meaningless 
to  Him.  When  Jesus  began  to  act  upon  these  con- 
victions He  was  certain  to  arouse  an  enormous  social 
prejudice,  for  there  are  few  things  about  which  men 
are  more  sensitive  than  social  distinction.  The 
moment  He  threw  His  growing  prestige  in  favor  of 
ignoring  social  lines  He  had  arrayed  against  Him  in 
a  solid  mass  all  those  classes  whose  peculiar  privileges 
He  failed  to  recognize.  The  choice  of  the  first  dis- 
ciples did  not  arouse  any  prejudice  against  Him  or 
His  ideas;  but  when  He  chose  Levi,  a  publican,  and 
attended  the  supper  which  apparently  Levi  gave  to 
his  old  friends  before  entering  into  the  closest  felloAv- 
ship  with  the  other  disciples,  the  harm  was  done  (Mk. 
2:16).  The  answer  that  Jesus  made  to  the  rebuke 
that  He  violated  social  conventions  (Mk.  2:17)  indi- 
cates that  His  interest  and  sympathy  went  out  in  a 
peculiar  way  to  those  who  were  less  privileged. 

We  can  see  too  that  the  indifference  of  Jesus  to  the 
mere  externals  of  religion  augmented  the  opposition 
that  grew  out  of  His  claims  and  His  democratic  tem- 
per. It  w^as  impossible  that  He  should  regulate  His 
own  conduct  or  that  of  His  disciples  by  the  wire- 
drawn inferences  of  rabbinic  reasoning  upon  the  law. 
He  and  they  must  be  free  to  act  from  the  higher 
laws  that  grow  out  of  fresh,  vital  experiences  (Mk. 
2:19).  A  tactful  accommodation  on  the  part  of  Jesus 
to  religious  prejudice  might  have  led  Him  to  enjoin 
fasting  upon  His  disciples,  but  since  Jesus  did  not 
believe  that  the  practice  had  any  particular  value. 
He  would  not  take  that  insincere  course.  Further- 
more, the  differences  between  Jesus  and  the  men  of 
His  time  were  so  radical  that  any  attempt  to  patch 


46  The  Great  Ministry 

them  up  would  be  futile.  The  new  cloth  could  not 
be  sewn  on  the  old  garment  to  advantage;  the  old 
wine-skins  were  not  suitable  for  the  new  wine  (Mk. 
2:21,22). 

Jesus  could  make  very  little  use  of  the  shrewd, 
tactful  diplomatist  with  his  unbounded  faith  in 
adroit  concessions  and  vague  phrases.  The  antago- 
nism between  His  claims,  His  ideas  of  man,  and  of 
religion,  and  the  prejudices,  principles  and  practices 
of  the  world  in  which  He  moved  were  radical  and 
fundamental.  Jesus  did  not  flaunt  these  differences, 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  He  did  not  conceal  them. 
He  let  the  antagonism  to  Himself  develop  as  it  would. 
He  gives  us  the  unsurpassed  example  of  fidelity  to 
oneself. 


CHAPTER  XII. 
The  Rights  of  the  Soul. 

Mt.  12:1-14;   Jo.  5:1-18 

The  attitude  of  Jesus  toward  the  Hebrew  Sabbath 
figures  very  largely  in  the  accounts  of  the  antagonism 
to  Him  which  finally  culminated  in  His  crucifixion. 
Was  this  the  real  cause  of  the  strengthening  oppo- 
sition to  Him,  or  did  the  leaders  of  public  opinion 
skilfully  use  His  disregard  of  the  Sabbatic  customs 
of  the  time  as  a  convenient  means  of  arousing  against 
Him  a  strong  religious  prejudice? 

The  careful  student  of  the  narratives  will  be  apt 
to  conclude  that  there  is  truth  in  both  the  answers 
these  questions  suggest.  On  the  one  hand,  the  rulers 
acquired  a  violent 
and  more  or  less 
sincere  prejudice 
against  Him  be- 
cause of  the  free- 
dom with  which 
He  treated  the  Sab- 
bath; on  the  other 
hand,  behind  this 
prejudice,  and 
doubtless  contrib- 
uting strongly  to  it, 
was  a  consciousness 

that     Jesus     did    not  Entrance  to  the  Virgin's  Fountain. 

Kd/Tn  rr  +<^  +Viciit-  nirAa-r  •  ^^  ^^^  southern  slope  of  the  temple  mount,  and  eouBid- 
UeiUllg  LU  Liieil  Uiuei  ,  eredby  sumeastheBiteofthePoolof  Bethesda. 

that  He  represented 

a  different  spirit,  a  different  type  of  ideas,  a  different 
attitude  toward  life  than  their  own.  One  manifes- 
tation of  that  difference  was  the  way  He  treated  the 
Sabbath,  but  His  practice  as  to  the  Sabbath  was  not 
of  itself  sufficient   to   arouse   their  deadly   hostility. 

47 


The  liiUical  «gnd.' 


48  The  Great  Ministry 

They  made  so  much  of  this  as  a  handle  against  Him 
because  His  position  upon  this  matter  was  typical 
of  the  real  differences  between  Him  and  them,  and 
because  the  charge  that  He  was  a  Sabbath  breaker 
was  a  good  label  to  fasten  on  Him  to  arouse  Jewish 
prejudice.  The  general  correctness  of  this  position 
is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  where  they  can  bring 
the  charge  of  blasphemy  against  Him,  with  some 
color  of  excuse,  they  drop  the  accusation  of  Sabbath 
breaking,  and  dwell  on  the  new  charge.  We  can 
actually  see  the  point  at  which  the  two  charges  are 
coupled  and  the  second  becomes  predominant  (Jo. 
5:18). 

Three  incidents  set  before  us  the  attitude  of  Jesus 
as  to  the  Sabbath.  He  heals  a  man  with  an  infirmity 
at  the  Pool  of  Bethesda  on  the  Sabbath  day  (Jo. 
5:1-9) ;  He  heals  a  man  with  a  withered  hand  in  the 
synagogue  on  a  later  Sabbath  (Mt.  12:9-13),  and  He 
does  not  condemn  His  disciples  for  a  violation  of  the 
well-understood  Sabbath  law  (Mt.  12:3-8). 

Two  most  important  questions  arise  just  here:  The 
first  is,  why  did  not  Jesus  regard  the  customs  and 
prejudices  of  the  Jews  in  this  matter.?  Why  did  He, 
by  His  independent  course,  expose  Himself  to  a 
criticism  that  many  would  regard  as  just,  and  give 
His  enemies  a  handle  against  Him?  Why  did  He  not, 
as  society  people  would  say,  show  more  "tact,"  and 
not  affront  a  prejudice?  Why  did  Pie  not,  as  the 
literalist  interpreters  of  Paul  would  say,  have  regard 
to  the  weak  consciences  of  His  countrymen? 

The  moment  you  seek  a  real  answer  to  such  legiti- 
mate questions  you  are  confronted  by  the  fact  that 
the  social  requirement  of  tact,  or  the  moral  principle 
of  deference  to  weak  consciences  has  important  limi- 
tations. The  conduct  of  Jesus  perfectly  illustrates 
them.  There  is  a  law  of  independent  loyalty  to  one's 
own  principles  which  is  absolutely  supreme  over  the 
law  of  accommodation.    There  is  a  limit  bevond  which 


The  Rights  of  the  Soul  49 

prejudices  have  no  right  to  lay  down  the  law  for  the 
conduct  of  those  who  are  free  from  them.  There  is 
a  point  at  which  the  so-called  "weak  conscience" 
demonstrates,  by  the  very  vigor  with  which  it  lays 
down  the  law,  that  it  does  not  belong  in  the  category 
of  the  weak. 

This  consideration  throws  much  light  upon  an 
aspect  of  our  Lord's  character  which  has  been  far 
too  often  overlooked.  He  is  the  one  in  whom  thor- 
ough-going manliness  reaches  its  ideal  development. 
He  is  the  courageous,  independent  soul  because  He 
is  self-convinced,  knows  His  own  principles,  is  thor- 
oughly loyal  to  them  and  does  not  shrink  from  the 
hostilities  that  loyalty  may  provoke.  We  utterly 
misinterpret  the  Christian  attitude  when  we  make 
our  Lord's  caution  against  offending  "one  of  these 
little  ones"  (Mt.  18:6)  an  excuse  for  our  cowardice 
for  not  bearing  manly  witness  to  our  convictions. 
Jesus  did  not  affront  the  notions  of  His  contempo- 
raries for  the  sake  of  showing  His  independence,  but 
He  was  independent  and  submitted  to  the  results  of 
that  course,  because  He  must  be  true  to  Himself,  to 
His  own  principles,  ideals  and  mission. 

A  second  important  question  is  this:  What  was 
Jesus'  doctrine  of  the  Sabbath?  A  study  of  the 
three  answers  He  gave  His  critics  shows  clearly  that 
He  based  His  doctrine  upon  the  fact  that  the  purpose 
of  the  divine  law  is  the  good  of  man.  God  does  not 
enjoin  the  Sabbath  law  for  His  own  sake.  He  does 
not  cease  in  acts  of  beneficence  on  the  seventh  day 
(Jo.  5:17,  18).  There  is  a  gradation  in  the  authority 
of  laws.  The  Sabbath  law  must  yield  to  the  dictates 
of  human  need  (Mt.  12:11-13),  and  to  the  demands 
of  humanity  (Mt.  12:3-7).  The  unifying  principle  of 
these  answers  is  the  worth  of  the  human  personahty 
to  which  the  law  ministers.  "The  Sabbath  was 
made  for  man."  And  the  right  use  of  the  Sabbath 
day  is   to   use   it   for   the   promotion  of  the  noblest 


50  The  Great  Ministry 

interests  of  man.  The  specific  ways  in  which  it  shall 
be  used  must  be  left  to  the  Christian  perception  of 
the  fitness  of  things,  to  common  sense,  to  the  dictates 
of  the  spiritual  life.  Spiritually  minded  men  will 
always  use  it  worthily;  unspiritual  men  will  be  apt 
to  slight  its  privilege. 

The  fundamental  truth  that  Jesus  enunciates  in 
this  connection  hardly  touches  the  modern  question 
of  Sunday  legislation  by  the  civil  authority.  The 
principle  of  the  separation  of  church  and  state,  which 
is  so  clearly  involved  in  the  teachings  of  the  New 
Testament,  forbids  the  enactment  of  Sunday  laws 
on  distinctively  religious  grounds,  but  it  does  not 
forbid  the  protection  of  those  who  would  use  the  day 
for  the  highest  ends,  and,  if  the  state  has  a  right  to 
prohibit  child  labor,  and  to  fix  the  hours  of  organized 
labor,  it  has  a  right  to  prohibit  organized  labor  on 
this  day.  The  state  may,  without  trenching  upon 
the  functions  of  the  church,  secure  to  every  man  a 
day  of  rest.  The  way  a  man  uses  the  day  of  rest  is 
the  outcome  of  his  spiritual  life. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Discerning  the  Lord. 
Review  of  Chapters  I-XII. 

An  ancient  Hebrew  prophecy  had  declared  that 
when  the  Messiah  appeared  men  would  not  recognize 
Him  (Is.  53:2,  3).  Certainly  this  anticipation  was 
abundantly  fulfilled  in  the  career  of  Jesus.  The  pri- 
mary reason  why  the  contemporaries  of  Jesus  failed  to 
discern  His  nature  and  office  was  that  they  grossly 
misconceived  the  realm  in  which  His  sovereignty  was 
to  be  exercised.  They  were  by  no  means  stupid  or 
unresponsive  men,  but  they  were  misled  by  their 
preconception  that  political,  external  dominion  was 
the  peculiar  function  of  the  Messiah.  And  because 
all  their  mental  processes  started  from  this  false 
assumption  their  very  devotion  to  the  Mosaic  law,  as 
historically  interpreted,  blinded  their  eyes  to  the 
character  of  Jesus.  This  comes  out  very  clearly  in 
the  course  of  the  Sabbath  controversy  which  plays 
such  an  important  part  in  their  rejection  of  Him. 
The  simple  fact  that  Jesus  did  not  honor  the  Sabbath 
as  they  thought  it  ought  to  be  honored  invalidated 
His  claim  in  their  eyes  (Jo.  9:16). 

The  realm  of  the  Messiah,  however,  is  not  primarily 
that  of  political  or  material  sovereignties,  though 
these  were  to  be  profoundly  influenced  and  ultimately 
transformed  by  Him;  His  realm  was  that  of  character, 
of  spiritual  experiences,  of  soul  relationships  to  God. 
Inevitably,  therefore,  they  sought  for  the  evidences  of 
His  Messiahship  in  the  wrong  domain.  They  were 
like  those  who  would  require  an  artist  to  demonstrate 
his  power  by  the  tests  of  mechanics. 

Even  if  the  contemporaries  of  Jesus  had  appre- 
hended much  more  adequately  the  forecasts  of  the 
great  prophets,  it  does  not  follow  that  they  would 

51 


52  The  Great  Ministry 

have  understood  Jesus  at  once,  for  in  our  judgments 
of  character,  just  as  in  our  appreciation  of  music 
or  painting,  we  are  profoundly  influenced  by  conven- 
tional standards.  It  required  the  insight  of  Ruskin 
to  discern  and  disclose  to  modern  England  the  superb 
genius  of  Turner.  Only  a  delicate  moral  sense 
responds  to  the  nobler  types  of  character,  if  they 
are  uncommon. 

But  there  were  some  in  Palestine  who  not  only  had 
sufficient  insight  to  see  that  Jesus  was  a  most  unusual 
personality,  but  who  also  discerned  in  Him  such  a 
mass  and  height  of  moral  excellence,  dignity  and 
beauty  that,  to  use  the  words  of  His  latest  biographer, 
they  could  say,  "We  beheld  his  glory,  glory  as  of  the 
only  begotten  from  the  Father,  full  of  grace  and 
truth"  (Jo.  1:14).  The  interior  clue  to  the  apprecia- 
tion of  the  fourth  gospel  is  to  bring  every  incident 
recorded  in  it  under  the  light  of  the  question:  What, 
on  the  one  hand,  does  it  contribute  to  the  self -dis- 
closure of  Jesus,  and  what,  on  the  other  hand,  does 
it  reveal  of  the  processes  by  which  men  came  to  a 
just  apprehension  of  His  personality? 

In  our  studies  in  the  life  of  Jesus  up  to  the  formal 
choosing  of  the  Twelve,  the  outstanding  features  are 
the  blindness  of  the  leaders  of  public  opinion,  under 
the  influence  of  the  causes  just  suggested,  to  the  nature 
of  Jesus,  and  the  profound  and  happy  insight  by 
which  a  few  choice  spirits  discerned  His  divine  quality. 
The  first  to  penetrate  beneath  the  popular  conventions 
of  the  time  was  Jesus'  own  relative,  John  the  Baptist. 
At  the  very  outset  of  the  public  ministry  John  recog- 
nized Jesus  as  the  One  whose  way  it  was  his  own 
mission  to  prepare.  He  rose  even  to  a  loftier  height 
of  spiritual  discernment,  and  declared  that  Jesus  was 
both  "the  Lamb  of  God"  and  "the  Son  of  God"  (Jo. 
1:29-34).  This  witness  was  the  starting  point  of 
further  recognitions.  It  did  not  create  them;  but 
it  propagated  presumptions  that  made  the  insights, 


Discerning  the  Lord  53 

to  which  each  person  came  for  himself,  the  easier. 
And  so  we  find  Andrew  and  Peter,  Philip  and  Nathan- 
ael,  and  probably  John,  coming  at  least  to  a  partial 
discernment,  which  was  strengthened  and  clarified 
when  Jesus  gave  some  of  them  a  specific  invitation 
to  become  His  close  companions  (Mk.  1:16-20). 
Through  the  miraculous  draft  of  fishes  (Lu.  5:1-11) 
there  seems  to  have  flashed  upon  the  minds  of  Peter 
and  his  companions  a  fresh  and  vivid  revelation  of 
the  majestic  personality  of  Jesus.  The  incident 
reminds  one  of  that  unsurpassed  passage  in  Browning: 

"  I  stood  at  Naples  once,  a  night  so  dark 
I  could  have  scarce  conjectured  there  was  earth 
Anywhere,  sky  or  sea,  or  world  at  all; 
But  the  night's  black  was  burst  through  by  a  blaze, 
Thunder  struck  blow  on  blow,  earth  groaned  and  bore 
Through  her  whole  length  of  mountain  visible; 
There  lay  the  city  thick  and  plain  with  spires, 
And,  like  a  ghost  dis-shrouded,  white  the  sea. 
So  may  the  truth  be  flashed  out  by  one  blow." 

The  case  of  Nathanael  illustrates  another  type,  and 
it  is  of  extreme  interest.  He  seems  to  have  been  a 
spiritually  minded  man,  though  his  preconceptions 
and  prejudices  were  all  averse  to  Jesus,  but  the  dis- 
closure of  Jesus'  knowledge  of  a  trivial  event  wrought 
a  sudden  change  in  his  convictions,  and  his  clarified 
insight  registered  itself  in  a  confession  that  is  worthy 
of  a  place  beside  the  consummate  utterance  of  Simon 
Peter  (Jo.  1:49;  Mt.  16:16).  We  can  trace  the 
development  of  Peter's  faith;  Nathanael's  w^as  the 
product  of  an  instant.  Still  further,  the  experience 
of  Nicodemus  and  of  the  woman  of  Samaria  illustrate 
a  recognition  of  Jesus  gained  through  a  very  full 
self-disclosure  on  His  part. 

It  is  not  clear  to  what  extent  those  whom  Jesus 
healed  during  this  period  apprehended  His  person- 
ality. Probably  their  ideas  were  confused.  The 
important  thing  for  us  to  notice  is  that  the  men  \vho 


54  The  Great  Ministry 

had  the  insight  to  recognize  Him  became  the  human 
founders  of  His  kingdom.  It  is  this  recognition 
accompanied  by  loyalty  to  it  which  fills  up  the  mean- 
ing of  the  great  and  mysterious  word  "faith." 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

The  Society  of  Jesus. 

Mk.  3:7-19a. 

The  term  "Society  of  Jesus"  is  the  title  of  the 
most  admired,  most  hated,  and  most  powerful  organi- 
zation in  the  Roman  church.  But  the  use  of  this 
name  by  Loyola,  and  the  sinister  associations  that 
have  clustered  about  it,  should  not  blind  us  to  the 
fact  that  it  is  one  of  the  happiest  designations  of  the 
Christian  church,  which  is  "a  company  and  fellowship 
of  faithful  and  holy  people  gathered  in  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ. "  In  our  Lord's  appointment  of  the 
Twelve  we  have  the  nucleus  of  the  historic  Christian 


^uS^ 


'^^.iJ::^: 


From  *'Le«perphot05rapbB,"  copyright,  IJ  J. 

The  Horns  of  Hattin. 
The  traditional  place  of  the  clioosing  of  llie  Twelve  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

church,  and  the  ends  for  which  He  gathered  this 
society  are  the  objects  for  which  the  church  exists, 
namely,  that  its  members  may  be  developed  in  the 
Christian  life,  and  that  individually  and  collectively 
they  may  be  the  agents  for  diffusing  that  life.  The 
means,  too,  by  which  the  Twelve  and  the  church 
accomplish  their  purposes  are  the  same,  namely, 
knowledge  of  Jesus,   gained  through  His  word   and 

55 


56  The  Great  Ministry 

personal  fellowship  with  Him,  and  obedience  to  His 
commands. 

About  four  months  had  elapsed  since  Jesus  had 
summoned  Peter,  Andrew,  James  and  John  to  leave 
all  and  follow  Him.  During  those  months  many 
things  had  taken  place.  Jesus  had  wrought  a  series 
of  miracles  in  Capernaum  (Mk.  1:21-34);  He  had 
made  a  preaching  tour  of  Galilee  (Mk.  1:35-45);  He 
had  healed  the  paralytic  (Mk.  2:12)  and  called  Mat- 
thew to  join  the  four  previously  chosen  (Mk.  2: 
13-17).  He  had  restored  the  infirm  man  at  the  Pool 
of  Bethesda  (Jo.  ch.  5),  and  the  man  with  a  withered 
hand  (Mk.  3:1-6),  and  He  had  engaged  in  the  critical 
controversies  about  fasting  and  the  Sabbath  (Mk. 
2:18-22;  3:1-6). 

At  the  time  when  He  added  seven  intimate  com- 
panions to  the  five  already  chosen  He  was  so  widely 
known  throughout  the  whole  country  that  great 
crowds  pressed  about  Him  wherever  He  went  (Mk. 
3: 7- 12),, and  the  antagonism  on  the  part  of  the  higher 
ecclesiastics  had  so  far  developed  that  they  had  half 
formed  a  purpose— not  to  kill  Him,  that  was  a  later 
development — in  some  way  or  other  to  put  Him  out 
of  the  way.  It  was  evident  that  if  the  influence  of 
Jesus  was  to  be  concentrated  and  perpetuated  it 
must  be  through  the  organization  of  a  larger  number 
of  companions  who  should  get  His  full  thought, 
catch  His  spirit  and  act  with  some  degree  of  unity. 
The  way  Jesus  met  the  emergency  was  to  add  seven 
to  the  five  companions  He  already  had.  He  lived 
with  these  friends  and  taught  them  much  that  He 
withheld  from  the  crowds.  He  also  suggested  their 
future  work,  and  gave  them  practice  by  sending 
them  out  on  short  preaching  trips. 

The  seven  men  who  thus  made  up  the  full  com- 
plement of  the  Twelve  were  not  the  equals  in  ability 
or  character  of  the  five  previously  chosen.  Peter 
and  John  were  men  of  real  genius.    There  were  rock- 


The  Society  of  Jesus  57 

like  elements  in  the  former,  in  spite  of  his  superficial 
waywardness  and  vacillation.  If  Peter  wrote  the 
first  epistle  attributed  to  him,  and  John  is  responsible 
for  the  fourth  gospel,  both  men  had  literary  power 
of  the  very  first  order.  James  had  a  certain  com- 
bination of  energA^  and  passion  with  steadfastness, 
and  Matthew  appears  to  have  had  all  the  character- 
istics of  a  first-rate  man  of  affairs.  The  first  five 
were  not  to  be  despised  in  any  list  of  the  world's 
effective  men.  The  second  group  of  seven  did  not 
belong  in  the  same  class.  They  \vere  simply  sensible, 
good-hearted,  average  men.  They  belonged  to  the 
order  of  the  two-talented,  who  make  up  the  majority 
of  any  community,  and  are  the  substratum  of  ordinary 
civilized  society.  We  must  not,  however,  fall  into 
the  error  of  thinking  of  them  as  "unlearned  and 
ignorant  men. "  That  was  the  characterization  of 
a  group  of  supercilious  officials  who  thought  that 
their  technical  knowledge  was  the  only  education 
worth  having  (Acts  4:13).  It  has  always  been  dif- 
ficult to  find  a  Jew  who  was  "ignorant"  in  the  modern 
sense,  and  certainly  there  were  no  ignorant  Jews  in 
Palestine  during  the  first  half  century  of  our  era. 
Perhaps  at  that  time  there  were  few  provinces  of 
the  Roman  Empire  which  enjoyed  so  generous  and 
widely  diffused  a  culture  as  Palestine. 

Stiil,  though  it  is  not  entirely  easy  from  the  point 
of  view  of  worldly  wisdom  to  justify  the  choice  of 
the  seven,  we  can  see  some  reasons  for  Jesus'  course, 
and  it  was  magnificently  vindicated  by  the  event. 

For  one  thing,  the  qualities  of  human  nature  that 
are  essential  to  make  men  effective  agents  in  the 
diffusion  of  the  Christian  life  are  not  the  more  bril- 
liant and  showy  endowments,  but  sincerity,  common 
sense,  and  a  certain  integrity  of  mental  and  spiritual 
constitution.  In  the  apostolic  band  there  was  a 
Peter  and  a  John.  The  annals  of  Christian  history 
are   studded  with  names  that  represent  superlative 


58  The  Great  Ministry 

genius  and  equipment.  There  have  always  been 
noble  preachers,  effective  administrators,  learned 
theologians,  inspiring  teachers  and  heroic  mission- 
aries. But  the  roads  along  which  the  Christian  life 
has  advanced  have  been  the  ways  of  ordinary  human 
relationships.  The  wholesome  ties  of  family  life,  of 
neighborhood  association,  of  business  connection, 
have  been  the  channels  through  which  the  honest 
heart,  the  firm  conviction,  the  pure  life  have  touched 
another  life,  and  interpreted  and  commended  the 
Gospel.  A  religion  that  could  not  take  the  average 
man  and  make  him  its  preacher,  even  from  the  point 
of  view  of  ordinary  worldly  forecast,  had  no  likeli- 
hood of  becoming  a  universal  faith.  A  religion  that 
can  make  both  the  group  of  five  and  the  group  of 
seven  its  effective  heralds  is  stamped  with  the  mark 
of  universality. 

And  how  effectively  the  very  composition  of  the 
Twelve  taught  the  great  primal  lesson  of  brother- 
hood through  a  common  relationship  with  the  Master! 
These  two  groups,  with  all  their  peculiar  differences, 
are  mingled  in  the  Twelve,  and  then  we  have  such  a 
contrast  as  that  between  the  believing  Nathanael 
and  the  doubting  Thomas,  or  that  between  Matthew, 
the  tax-gatherer,  and  Simon  Zelotes,  a  fanatical 
hater  of  taxes  and  tax-collectors.  Is  there  any 
power  that  will  bring  men  to  a  recognition  of  their 
essential  brotherhood,  and  then  make  the  fact  inter- 
pretative of  their  duties  and  inspire  a  readiness  to 
perform  them?  That  is  a  question  that  all  Western 
civilization,  with  its  clash  of  interests  and  parties 
and  traditions,  is  asking  to-day  more  urgently  than 
ever.  Does  not  the  brotherhood  which  Jesus  organ- 
ized of  men  of  such  different  types  and  endowments 
and  prejudices,  which  He  unified  in  a  common  rela- 
tionship to  Himself,  suggest  the  only  suflEicient 
answer? 


CHAPTER  XV. 
What  is  Righteousness? 

Mt.  ch.  5. 

The  choosing  of  the  Twelve  was  naturally  followed 
by  our  Lord's  clear,  detailed,  definite  statement  of 
His  leading  ideas  and  purposes.  This  exposition  is  the 
so-called  "Sermon  on  the  Mount."  It  was  spoken 
to  the  disciples,  possibly  only  to  the  Twelve,  but  the 
truths  it  expressed  were  universal  in  their  range. 
They  are  the  principles  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

We  have  observed  that  the  significance  of  the  bap- 
tism of  Jesus  at  the  hands  of  John  was  that  it  was 
Jesus'  personal  acceptance  and  endorsement  of  the 
message  of  John.  That  message  was  that  title  to 
membership  in  the  kingdom  of  God  is  personal 
righteousness  springing  out  of  repentance.  As  we 
have  seen,  in  studying  the  conversation  with  Nicode- 
mus  and  the  woman  of  Samaria,  Jesus  did  not  stop 
with  the  message  of  John.  He  built  on  it  a  noble 
structure;  but  after  all,  the  message  of  John  was  the 
foundation  of  all  His  conceptions,  and  it  is  through 
Jesus'  adoption  of  this  message  that  His  own  career 
is  linked  with  the  long  Hne  of  Hebrew  prophets  from 
the  days  of  Moses.  The  noblest  utterances  of  the 
prophets,  the  message  of  the  last  and  greatest  of 
them,  John  the  Baptist,  and  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
find  a  point  of  unity  in  the  truth  that  title  to  the 
kingdom  of  God  depends  on  personal  righteousness. 

Now  "righteousness"  is  one  of  those  vague  terms 
to  which  different  minds  attach  very  different  notions. 
It  was,  therefore,  of  the  utmost  importance  that  Jesus 
should  clear  this  term  of  all  false  and  superstitious 
and  unworthy  interpretations.  That  is  just  what  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  does.  It  is  an  exposition  of 
what  Jesus  means  by  "righteousness." 

59 


60  The  Great  Ministry 

The  introduction  to  this  exposition  consists  of  the 
"Beatitudes"  (Mt.  5:3-12),  which  are  specific  reaffir- 
mations of  the  principle  that  the  title  to  the  kingdom 
is  personal  righteousness.  Those  who  are  conscious 
of  their  need  (the  poor  in  spirit) ;  those  to  whom  their 
needs  and  the  needs  of  others  are  a  grief  (the  mourn- 
ers) ;  those  who  in  trouble  maintain  their  equanimity 
(the  meek) ;  those  who  long  for  righteousness ;  the 
merciful;  the  pure  in  heart;  the  peacemakers;  the 
persecuted  for  righteousness'  sake — these  are  the 
members  of  the  kingdom ;  they  have  true  blessedness ; 
they  find  their  needs  met;  they  inherit  the  earth; 
they  obtain  merc)^;  they  see  God;  they  are  called 
the  sons  of  God ;  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  In 
this  original  and  graphic  way  Jesus  expounds  and 
enforces  the  truth  for  which  John  the  Baptist  stood, 
that  the  title  to  the  kingdom  is  personal  righteousness. 
But  how  vital  and  searching  and  lovely  the  idea  of 
righteousness  is  becoming  under  the  touch  of  the 
mind  of  Jesus! 

But  before  Jesus  proceeds  to  the  main  exposition 
His  thought  is  arrested  by  a  consideration  that  appeals 
to  us  at  once.  What  a  place  this  world  would  be  if 
the  people  in  it  had  the  characteristics  of  which  He 
has  just  been  speaking!  And  then,  with  a  magnifi- 
cent optimism,  He  looks  at  the  men  who  are  of  this 
sort,  and  He  says  to  them,  "Ye  are  the  salt  of  the 
earth,  ...  ye  are  the  light  of  the  world." 
That  is  your  task,  to  save  the  world  from  putrefac- 
tion and  darkness.  And  it  is  no  hopeless  enterprise. 
The  unshaded  light  illuminates  the  whole  room. 
Darkness  has  no  chance  before  a  ray  of  light.  It  is 
at  once  vanquished.  How  are  the  members  of  the 
kingdom  to  transform  the  earth?  The  answer  of 
Jesus  is  quite  simple,  but  perhaps  it  is  more  profound 
than  sometimes  we  have  imagined:  "Let  your  light 
shine  before  men  that  they  may  see  your  beautiful 
deeds  (literal  translation),  and  glorify  your  Father 
which  is  in  heaven." 


What  is  Righteousness  61 

Jesus  has  not  come  to  anything  like  a  full  exposi- 
tion of  His  idea  of  righteousness,  but  even  thus  far 
He  has  said  enough  to  suggest  that  His  teaching  is 
different  from  that  of  the  law  and  the  prophets.  He 
meets  that  suggestion  by  a  fiat  denial.  He  says, 
"I  am  not  destroying,  but  I  am  fulfilling.  The  law 
and  the  prophets  are  of  eternal  significance  and 
worth.  They  are  not  the  product  of  human  contri- 
vance or  imagination ;  they  are  the  expression  of  the 
constitution  of  things.  Heaven  and  earth  may  pass 
away  as  readily  as  the  moral  requirements.  Great- 
ness in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  will  depend  upon  the 
fidelity  with  which  one  obeys  the  law  of  righteous- 
ness in  conduct  and  word"  (Mt.  5:17-19). 

The  discourse  now  advances  to  the  specific  develop- 
ment of  the  great  theme:  What  is  righteousness? 
The  rest  of  the  fifth  chapter  of  Matthew  (vs.  21-48) 
is  occupied  with  a  series  of  contrasts  between  current 
Jewish  conceptions  and  the  teachings  of  Jesus. 
These  contrasts  touch  murder,  adultery,  divorce, 
oaths,  retaliation  and  resistance,  and  love  of  others. 
The  significant  feature  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  as  to 
these  matters  is  its  inwardness.  With  Him  righteous- 
ness does  not  consist  in  outward  conformity  to  certain 
rules  or  conventions;  it  consists  in  the  rectitude  of 
the  thought  and  feeling  that  lie  behind  the  outward 
act,  out  of  which  it  springs.  This  not  only  applies 
a  searching  test  to  specific  acts,  but  it  enormously 
enlarges  the  range  of  acts  which  are  to  be  judged. 
No  schedule  of  deeds  has  a  mesh  fine  enough  to  cap- 
ture all  life.  The  teachings  of  Jesus,  that  the  motive 
and  impulse  behind  all  acts  measure  them,  brings 
the  whole  of  Hfe  under  the  demand  for  righteousness. 

As  Jesus  proceeded  His  hearers  must  have  felt,  as 
we  feel  when  we  read  His  words  thoughtfully,  that 
He  has  made  "righteousness"  so  difficult  that  it  is 
well-nigh  impossible.  His  idea  of  righteousness  makes 
it  nothing  less  than  perfection,  and  that  not  the  per- 


62  The  Great  Ministry 

fection  of  man,  but  the  perfection  of  the  heavenly 
Father  (Mt.  5:48). 

We  sometimes  hear  critics  of  historical  Christianity 
say,  "I  stand  on  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount;  if  we 
follow  out  its  teachings  that  is  all  we  need;  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount  is  good  enough  for  me."  Yes, 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  not  only  good  enough 
for  us,  but  it  is  good  enough  for  God.  What  man 
who  ever  lived  will  stand  justified  by  its  exacting 
requirements?  And  when  men  say,  "That  is  all  we 
need;  that  is  religion  enough  for  me,"  they  are  like 
a  girl  who  sees  the  Koh-i-Noor  at  Windsor  Castle 
and  says,  "That  is  all  I  need;  that  is  good  enough 
for  me. " 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  Motive  of  Righteousness. 
Mt.  chs.  6,  7. 

The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  an  ellipse.  Its  foci 
are  the  counsel  of  perfection  (Mt.  5:48)  and  the 
Golden  Rule  (7:12).  Both  foci  are  determinative  of 
the  curve  which  bounds  it.  The  problem,  therefore, 
of  analyzing  it  is  not  so  simple  as  if  it  were  a  circle, 
described  from  one  point.  It  has  something  of  the 
complexity  of  actual  life,  which  is  never  swayed  by 
a  single  force.  In  a  broad  way,  however,  we  may 
assert  that  the  first  part,  which  is  chiefly  devoted  to 
the  nature  of  righteousness,  leads  up  to  the  command 
to  be  perfect  like  the  heavenly  Father;  while  the 
second  part  (chs.  6,  7),  which  is  principally  devoted 
to  an  exposition  of  the  motive  to  righteousness,  cul- 
minates in  the  precept  to  do  to  others  as  we  would 
have  them  do  to  us. 

After  Jesus  has  explained  that  the  essence  of 
righteousness  is  the  filial  relationship  of  man  to  God, 
He  proceeds  to  show  how  this  spiritual,  vital  fellow- 
ship, on  the  one  hand,  protects  men  from  the  evils 
that  are  inseparable  from  an  external  and  formal 
righteousness;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  inspires  those 
activities  which  bring  life  into  conformity  with  the 
divine  ideal. 

With  peculiar  insight  Jesus  discriminates  the  three 
outstanding  perils  of  conventional  righteousness. 
The  first  is  putting  the  approbation  of  men  in  the 
place  of  the  approval  of  God.  Public  opinion  may 
be  a  great  force  for  righteousness.  Probably  it 
influences  most  good  men  far  more  than  they  imagine. 
They  want  to  set  a  good  example,  not  to  bring  dis- 
credit upon  their  profession,  or  to  be  admired  for 
their  devotion.      But  the  righteousness  that  has  no 

63 


64 


The  Great  Ministry 


deeper  root  than  these  motives  is  a  frail  thing.  It 
is  only  the  soul  that  loves  the  praise  of  God  more 
than  the  praise  of  men  that  has  the  reality  of  right- 
eousness. Jesus  applied  this  principle  to  the  three 
observances  which  His  contemporaries  regarded  as 
the  chief  elements  of  religion — -to  almsgiving  (Mt. 
6:2-4),  to  prayer  (vss.  5,6),  and  to  fasting  (vss.  16-18). 
The  dominating  idea  in  each  of  these  discussions  is 
that  the  secret,  inward,  personal  relationship  of  the 
soul  of  man  to  God  is  the  only  thing  that  gives  sig- 
nificance to  these  acts.  In  other  words,  the  worth  of 
religious  observances  is  not  in  their  influence  upon 
our  fellows,  but  in  their  power  to  bring  our  own  souls 
into  fellowship  with  God.  And  when  men  do  acts 
of  piety  for  the  sake  of  impressing  their  fellows,  their 
religion  becomes  unreal  and  ostentatious.  Men  are 
won  to  God  by  the  "beautiful  deeds"  of  disciples 
(Mt.  5:16),  not  by  witnessing  their  distinctively 
religious  acts. 

Another  peril  of  formal,  rule-observing  religion  is 
its  double-mindedness.  When  a  man  does  not  have 
the  sense  of  vital,  sympathetic  relationship  to  God, 
and  his  religion  is  simply  com- 
mandment-keeping, he  will  be 
thinking  part  of  the  time  of  him- 
self, and  part  of  the  time  of  God. 
His  attitude  will  be:  So  much 
of  time,  strength,  attention,  treas- 
ure for  myself,  and  so  much  for 
God.  Laying  up  treasure  upon 
earth  will  be  supremely  important, 
for  who  is  to  take  care  of  him  if 
he  does  not  look  out  for  himself.'' 
Inevitably  such  a  man  becomes 
.„„ „^  r^,„„o,!o        selfish,    double-minded,    and    har- 

Anemone  Coronaria.  '  .      .  -^ 

This  is  a  beautiful  red  flower     asscd  by  auxictics.     (Jvcr  agamst 
IXuTrrbi^thf "ur  ri'     this    picture,    which    is    quite    as 

ferred  to  by  Christ  in  Mt.  6:28.        ^^^^     ^^     |-£g     ^^     ^^^     ^^^^     ^^^g     ^g 


The  Motive  of  Righteousness  65 

it  was  to  that  of  the  hrst  century  in  Judea,  Jesus 
puts  the  disciple  whose  righteousness  springs  out  of 
intimate  personal  fellowship  with  the  heavenly 
Father.  Such  a  disciple  will  be  emancipated  from 
the  self-seeking,  the  cross-purposes  and  the  solicitude 
to  which  the  formalist  is  always  subject  (Mt.  6:25-34). 
A  third  evil  of  external  religion  is  that  it  is  unsym- 
pathetic and  censorious.  The  mote  in  another's  eye 
becomes  a  chief  concern.  No  one  is  really  competent 
to  pass  a  judgment  upon  another's  conduct.  He  does 
not  have  the  data,  and  he  lacks  the  proper  temper. 
But  this  is  the  favorite  business  of  the  formalist. 
Like  the  Pharisee  in  the  temple,  he  cannot  keep  it 
even  out  of  his  prayers  (Lu.  18:9-14).  Of  course 
there  are  discriminations  based  on  simple  common 
sense.  It  is  too  often  forgotten  that  the  command 
not  to  give  that  which  is  holy  to  dogs,  or  to  cast 
pearls  before  swine,  which  implies  a  palpable  act  of 
judgment,  stands  in  immediate  connection  with  the 
prohibition  of  judging.  The  dictates  of  spiritual 
religion  do  not  violate  common  sense  and  the  fitness 
of  things.  But  over  against  the  censorious  hypocrite 
Jesus  places  the  son  and  the  father.  In  dealing  with 
those  who  are  in  spirit  His  sons,  the  heavenly  Father 
first  of  all  regards  the  fact  of  sonship,  not  the  minutiae 
of  desert  (Mt.  7:7-12).  In  this  great  passage  we  have 
the  germ  of  the  transcendent  Christian  doctrine  of 
grace.  We  should  not  forget  that  the  Golden  Rule 
immediately  follows.  The  Golden  Rule  does  not 
stand  by  itself.  It  is  an  inference,  "All  things, 
therefore,"  from  the  preceding  exposition.  This  fact 
gives  it  a  unique  character.  There  are  close  parallels 
to  the  Golden  Rule  in  Plato  and  in  Confucius.  Prof. 
Legge,  the  eminent  professor  of  Chinese  at  Oxford, 
and  a  devout  Christian,  believes  that  we  must  con- 
cede that  Confucius  stated  the  Golden  Rule  affirma- 
tively, like  Jesus,  as  well  as  negatively.  But  what 
neither  Plato  nor  Confucius  did,  was  to  connect  this 
rule  for  human  conduct  Avith  the  action  of  God,  and 


66  The  Great  Ministry 

to  enunciate  the  ultimate  law  of  human  life,  that 
man  should  act  in  the  little  sphere  of  his  experience 
according  to  the  same  principles,  by  the  same  methods, 
for  the  same  end  that  God  acts  in  the  vast  ranges  of 
His  being.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  the 
counsel  of  perfection  (Mt.  5:48),  and  the  Golden 
Rule  (7:12)  rest  upon  identical  grounds. 

But  the  question  now  arises:  If  filial  relationship 
to  God  is  the  heart  of  righteousness,  may  not  this 
very  confidence  in  God  rob  men  of  the  incentives  to 
moral  action?  Jesus  has  already  answered  that 
question  by  pointing  out  that  the  Father's  care  leaves 
them  free  to  devote  their  energies  to  the  things  most 
worth  while — so  that  with  a  single  mind  they  may 
seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God  (Mt.  6:33).  The  realm 
of  duty,  according  to  Jesus,  is  the  realm  of  liberty; 
and  in  that  realm  man  is  free  and  responsible.  Jesus 
applies  this  principle  in  three  ways.  He  urges  the 
necessity  of  vigorous  action  (Mt.  7:13;  comp.  Lu. 
13:24),  of  vigilant  circumspection  (Mt.  7:15-20),  and 
of  actual  obedience  (Mt.  7:21-27).  No  matter  what 
we  may  say  about  the  resources  of  the  land,  or  the 
rewards  of  industry,  food  and  raiment  largely  depend 
on  forces  beyond  the  control  of  man.  Trust  in  God 
relieves  us  from  over-anxiety  about  these  things,  but 
righteousness  depends  on  our  whole-hearted  choices, 
upon  our  moral  energy,  upon  actual  obedience.  On 
the  one  hand,  trust  in  God  for  daily  bread  and  all 
that  it  stands  for  emancipates  the  life  of  the  spirit 
from  the  bondage  of  the  material;  on  the  other  hand, 
trust  in  God,  the  sense  of  living  fellowship  with  Him, 
is  the  mighty  incentive  for  doing  His  will.  He  who 
said,  "Lay  not  up  for  yourselves  treasures, 
be  not  therefore  anxious,"  also  said,  "Strive  to  enter 
in  by  the  narrow  door."  And  He  who  made  trust 
in  God  the  burden  of  His  great  discourse  closed  it  by 
exhorting  men  to  obey  God,  for  He  knew  that  there 
cannot  be  obedience  without  trust,  or  trust  without 
obedience. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 
The  Evidences  of  the  Messiah. 

Lu.  7:1-35. 

Immediately  after  Jesus  had  chosen  the  first  four 
disciples  He  took  them  through  Galilee  on  a  short 
tour  of  preaching  and  healing.  After  His  selection 
of  the  Twelve,  and  the  course  of  instruction  con- 
tained in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  He  accompanied 
them  on  a  similar  journey.  The  purpose  of  these 
tours  was  not  only  to  proclaim  the  good  tidings  of 
the  kingdom,  but  also  to  bring  the  disciples  into 
actual  contact  with  human  life.     The  medical  student 


Modern  Nain. 

does  not  become  a  well  equipped  physician  by  read- 
ing books  or  by  attending  lectures;  he  must  have 
the  practice  of  clinics.  Theological  students  need 
something  more  than  courses  in  theolog}',  exegetics 
and  history;  they  must  bring  the  truth  they  win 
from  these  studies  into  actual  relation  with  present 
problems.  These  journeys  of  Jesus  with  His  disciples 
gave  them  clinical  experience. 

Luke  selects  out  of  the  many  occurrences  of  this 
tour  two  events  that  are  thoroughly  typical — the 
healing  of  the  centurion's  servant   (Lu.   7:2-10)   and 

67 


68  The  Great  Ministry 

the  raising  from  the  dead  of  a  widow's  son  (Lu.  7: 
11-17).  The  contrasts  between  these  works  of  mercy- 
impress  every  reader.  The  first  was  wrought  upon 
one  at  a  distance,  the  second  upon  one  at  hand;  the 
first  involves  a  supernatural  knowledge  as  well  as 
power;  the  second  carries  the  demonstration  of 
power  to  an  extreme  limit;  the  first  was  wrought  in 
response  to  a  faith  that  surpassed  any  that  Jesus  had 
found  in  Israel  (Lu.  7:9);  the  second  was  not  wrought 
in  response  to  any  faith  at  all,  it  sprang  wholly  out 
of  the  compassion  of  Jesus  (Lu.  7:13).  These  con- 
trasts enable  us  to  picture  imaginatively  the  activities 
of  Jesus.  His  helpfulness  was  as  varied,  and  His 
resources  as  ample  as  these  contrasts  would  suggest. 
Matthew  leads  us  to  suppose  that  the  moral  effect  of 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  was  overwhelming  (Mt. 
7:28,  29).  The  impression  made  upon  the  Twelve 
who  witnessed  this  series  of  events,  taken  in  connec- 
tion with  the  sermon,  must  have  begotten  in  their 
hearts  deep  and  strange  convictions. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  appreciate  the  episode 
which  followed.  At  this  juncture  two  disciples  of 
John  the  Baptist  arrived  with  the  question  of  their 
master,  "Art  thou  he  that  cometh,  or  look  we  for 
another?"  The  Greek  word  translated  "another" 
means  another  kind  of  person.  The  question  of  John 
involves  doubt,  not  merely  as  to  the  Messiahship  of 
Jesus,  but  as  to  the  Messiahship  of  any  one  like  Jesus. 
The  skepticism  of  the  Baptist  is  fundamental  and 
radical.  He  doubts  whether  the  Messiah  is  any  such 
person  as  Jesus  is  showing  Himself  to  be.  His  doubt 
extends  to  the  whole  program  of  Jesus — His  principles 
and  purposes  and  methods.  Many  expositors  shrink 
from  carrying  out  the  evident  implications  of  John's 
question.  Some  even  go  so  far  as  to  suggest  that 
John  sent  his  disciples  to  Jesus  to  confirm  their  faith, 
not  to  put  his  own  doubt  at  rest.  Such  subterfuges 
will  not  do.     The  words  should  be  taken  at  their 


The  Evidences  of  the  Messiah  69 

face  value.  John,  in  the  dungeon  of  Machasrus, 
where  he  had  been  imprisoned  by  Herod,  and  where 
he  was  awaiting  death,  reviewed  his  whole  career. 
Was  it  possible  that  he  had  been  deceived  by  that 
flash  of  insight  which  led  him  to  declare  that  Jesus 
was  the  Lamb  of  God  and  the  Son  of  God  (Jo.  1:29, 
34)  ?  In  view  of  the  different  program  and  temper 
of  John  from  the  course  of  Jesus,  and  especially  in 
view  of  the  apparent  ruin  of  his  own  life-work,  and 
the  success  of  Jesus,  the  question,  with  all  its  skepti- 
cism, was  thoroughly  natural  and  human.  It  is 
wholesome  for  us  to  remember  that  unquestionably 
great  men  in  the  moral  realm  often  walked  in  the 
darkness  by  dim  and  flickering  lights.  The  touching 
thing  about  this  incident  is  that  John  sent  his  friends 
to  Jesus  to  ask  of  Him  this  searching,  personal  ques- 
tion. That  betrays  his  fundamental  confidence  in 
Jesus.  He  believes  that  Jesus  will  tell  him  the  truth. 
The  relations  between  two  friends,  no  matter  how 
they  may  be  strained  by  doubts  and  misunderstand- 
ings, are  thoroughly  sound  and  noble,  when  the  one 
whose  confidence  is  disturbed  can  yet  go  to  the  other, 
and  say,  I  do  not  want  to  know  what  any  third  party 
says  or  thinks,  I  only  want  to  know  what  you  your- 
self say.  That  is  precisely  what  John  the  Baptist 
did.  And  those  who  read  this  episode  understand- 
ingly  rise  from  it  with  a  new  appreciation  of  a  great 
soul. 

The  reply  of  our  Lord  to  the  Baptist's  question 
brought  close  home  to  the  representatives  of  John 
the  evidence  that  was  making  such  deep  impression 
upon  the  minds  of  His  own  disciples  (Lu.  7:21-23). 
Undoubtedly  John  would  recognize  this  course  of 
Jesus  as  corresponding  with  the  Messianic  ideal 
(Is.  61:1).  It  might  be  difficult  for  him  to  revise  his 
own  program  (Mt.  3:10-12),  but  the  beatitude  with 
which  Jesus  closed  His  reply  (Lu.  7:23)  involves  a 
dehcate  suggestion  that  John  should  view  the  work 


70  The  Great  Alinistry 

of  Jesus  without  prejudice,  and  conform  his  Messianic 
outlook  to  a  truer  perspective. 

The  query  arises,  why  did  not  Jesus,  who  had  been 
moved  by  compassion  to  raise  the  widow's  son  from 
the  dead,  exercise  His  power  in  deHvering  His  rela- 
tive and  friend  and  forerunner?  One  answer,  and 
probably  the  true  one,  is  that  John  did  not  need 
compassion.  The  outward  circumstances  of  John 
were  about  as  depressing  as  they  could  be,  but,  no 
matter  what  the  circumstances,  a  true,  courageous 
man  who  is  suffering  for  his  loyalty  to  the  truth,  is 
not  the  one  whom  we  should  pity.  Such  a  man  takes 
the  pity  men  give  him,  and  hands  it  back,  and  will 
not  have  it.  That  is  exactly  what  Jesus  did  a  few 
months  later  (Lu.  23:28).  There  is  a  profound 
reason  why  the  compassion  of  Jesus  was  not  stirred 
for  John  the  Baptist  as  it  was  for  the  widow  of  Nain. 

Would  it  have  comforted  John  to  know  what  Jesus 
thought  of  him  (Lu.  7:24-29)?  Perhaps  so,  but  after 
all  that  great  soul  did  not  need  it,  and  the  martyr's 
crown  is  the  brighter  because  he  did  not  know  it. 
But  the  disciples  of  Jesus  needed  it,  and  the  world 
needed  it.  After  the  friends  of  the  Baptist  had 
departed,  Jesus  uttered  the  most  appreciative  eulo- 
gium  upon  the  lonely  prisoner  of  Machaerus  that  ever 
fell  from  His  lips.  Men  and  women  to-day  do  not 
always  know  what  Jesus  Christ  thinks  of  them.  The 
events  of  Hfe  go  hard  with  them.  They  experience 
poverty,  sickness,  bereavement,  the  blasting  of 
cherished  hopes.  They  are  like  the  prisoner  in 
Herod's  castle,  and  no  sympathetic  word  or  help 
comes  from  the  Christ  in  whom  the}^  have  beheved. 
One  of  the  great  rewards  of  the  future  for  the  loyal 
followers  of  Christ  will  be  to  know  exactly  what  He 
thinks  of  them. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

The  Three  Attitudes  of  Men  toward  Jesus. 

Mk.  3:196-35;  Lu.  7:36—8:3. 

During  the  second  preaching  tour  of  Jesus  the  atti- 
tude of  His  contemporaries  toward  Him  began  to 
take  detinite  form.  The  aged  Simeon  had  prophesied 
of  Jesus  in  His  childhood  that  He  would  be  the  touch- 
stone of  human  hearts  (Lu.  2:35).  Now  that  fore- 
cast began  to  be  fulfilled.  Men  and  women 
who  came  in  contact  with  Jesus  were  rapid- 
ly led  to  take  different  positions  toward 
Him.  These  positions  were  largely  deter- 
mined by  their  characters,  dispositions,  and 
spiritual  affinities.  Because  of  this,  the 
way  Jesus  affected  them  revealed — all  un- 
consciously to  themselves — "the  thoughts 
of  many  hearts.  " 

In  the  conduct  of  the  sinful  woman  at 
Simon's  feast  (Lu.  7:37,38)  we  have  a  vivid 
illustration  of  the  grateful,  adoring  love  to 
Him  which  sprang  up  in  a  soul  that  had 
come  to  have  faith  in  Him.  It  has  been 
conjectured  that  this  woman  may  have  been  An  Aiabas- 
a  guest  at  Levi's  farewell  dinner  (Lu.  5:29)  ^"Vase. 
where  she  had  seen  and  heard  Jesus,  and  a  wide  tra- 
dition has  identified  her,  though  it  may  be  unjustly, 
with  Mary  Magdalene.  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti's 
etching,  "Magdalene,"  has  never  been  exhibited  or 
reproduced,  for  reasons  personal  to  the  artist,  which 
those  who  are  familiar  with  Rossetti's  home  life  will 
at  once  appreciate.  One  who  saw  this  etching  says 
that  it  represents  the  woman  whom  Luke  describes 
in  the  street  of  a  city,  with  a  throng  of  merrymakers 
— she  the  fairest  of  them  all.  Her  face  has  the 
beauty  and  the  fascination  of  the  loveliest  of  human 

71 


72  The  Great  Ministry 

countenances.  But  Rossetti  has  not  pictured  her  in 
her  thoughtless  triumph.  From  an  open  window- 
looking  upon  the  street  she  has  seen  a  face  that  makes 
her  pause;  the  eyes  of  Jesus  have  met  hers.  She  is 
ascending  the  few  steps  leading  to  the  house  of  Simon 
the  Pharisee.  The  laugh  has  died  upon  her  lips;  she 
is  tearing  the  crown  of  flowers  from  her  golden  hair; 
she  is  flinging  her  ornaments  into  the  street;  she 
does  not  heed  the  youths  who  seek  to  restrain  her; 
she  turns  away  forever  from  her  gay  companions, 
who  stand  stricken  with  wonder. 

"  '  Oh,  loose  me!   See'st  thou  not  my  Bridegroom's  face 
That  draws  me  to  Him?   For  His  feet  my  kiss, 
My  hair,  my  tears  He  craves  to-day; — and  oh! 
What  words  can  tell  what  other  day  and  place 
Shall  see  me  clasp  those  blood-stained  feet  of  His? 
He  needs  me,  calls  me,  loves  me:  let  me  go!  '  " 

— Rossetti. 

The  look  of  Jesus  has  awakened  within  her  soul 
some  sense  of  the  beauty  of  holiness,  and  of  the  possi- 
bility and  wonder  of  redemption.  Faith  in  Him  has 
arisen  in  her  heart,  and  in  the  light  of  that  faith  we 
can  understand  the  beautiful  story  of  her  adoration 
of  the  Master  in  the  Pharisee's  house. 

Probably  a  larger  number  than  we  would  at  first 
suppose  from  a  cursory  reading  of  the  gospel  came  to 
this  attitude  of  faith  in  Jesus.  The  nobleman  in 
Capernaum,  who,  with  all  his  family,  believed  because 
of  the  son  whom  Jesus  had  healed,  and  the  women 
who  attended  Jesus  on  this  second  tour  (Lu.  8:2,  3) 
represented  a  somewhat  numerous  class. 

A  second  attitude  toward  Jesus  is  t5^pified  by 
Simon  the  Pharisee.  His  position  is  perfectly  well 
defined.  The  opposition  of  the  ecclesiastical  party, 
to  which  Simon  belonged,  had  become  very  intense, 
but  Simon  did  not  share  this  sentiment.  On  the  con- 
trary,   he    was    disposed    to    take    a    broad-minded. 


The   Three  Attitudes  of  Men  toward  Jesus      73 

tolerant  view  of  Jesus  and  of  the  whole  situation. 
He  would  even  go  so  far  as  to  extend  to  Jesus  the 
courtesy  of  an  invitation  to  dinner,  a  proceeding 
that  would  give  rise  to  much  sharp  criticism  among 
his  brother  Pharisees.  But  Simon  was  careful  not 
to  go  too  far  in  these  courtesies.  He  left  undone  a 
few  of  the  delicate  attentions  which  would  show  that 
he  welcomed  Jesus  on  the  basis  of  hearty  friendship 
and  social  equality.  He  did  not  provide  the  usual 
conveniences  for  washing  the  feet,  and  he  offered  no 
kiss  of  welcome.  The  conduct  of  Simon  is  not  free 
from  a  tinge  of  patronage  and  social  condescension. 
There  were  many  things  about  Jesus  that  he  liked, 
and  he  would  wish  to  know  Him  better;  but  he  could 
not  go  to  the  length  of  opening  his  heart  and  home 
to  Him,  and  welcoming  Him  on  the  basis  of  sincere, 
unreserved,  loyal  friendship.  The  attitude  of  Simon 
was  probably  not  the  common  one.  He  seems  to 
have  stood  almost  alone  in  it,  but,  throughout  the 
Christian  centuries,  his  attitude  has  been  typical  of 
the  relation  of  multitudes  to  Jesus.  Perhaps  it  is 
the  prevalent  attitude  of  the  so-called  "modern" 
mind.  Jesus  is  not  rejected;  His  claims  are  not  dis- 
allowed. On  the  contrary,  they  are  examined  with 
an  intelligent  curiosity,  and  He  is  admitted  to  be  a 
thoroughly  estimable  character,  who  merits  considera- 
tion and  hospitality.  In  short,  the  attitude  of  these 
persons  toward  Jesus  is  precisely  that  of  Simon. 
They  welcome  Him  to  a  certain  extent;  they  do  not 
oppose  Him,  but  they  adopt  a  course  that  is  more 
offensive  than  opposition;    they  patronize  Him. 

The  scribes  typify  another  attitude.  Many  senti- 
ments were  mingled  in  their  bitter  hostility  to  Jesus. 
Undoubtedly  they  were  moved  to  a  small  extent  by 
devotion  to  the  Mosaic  law,  which  they  believed  that 
Jesus  disparaged,  but  their  view  of  the  law  was  so 
hard,  narrow  and  unspiritual  that  this  motive  is  not 
entitled   to   much   respect.     What  really   influenced 


74  The  Great  Ministry 

them  seems  to  have  been  a  love  of  their  position,  with 
its  emoluments,  consideration  and  privilege.  They 
embodied  the  worst  vices  of  office-holders,  whether 
ecclesiastical  or  civil.  The  besetting  temptation  of 
such  men  is  to  regard  their  positions  as  vastly  more 
important  than  truth,  justice,  or  the  common  welfare. 
The  "scribes"  were  probably  right  in  their  forecast 
that  if  Jesus  were  permitted  to  continue  His  work 
their  own  privileges  were  doomed.  Their  attitude 
is  thoroughly  representative  of  the  course  of  those  in 
every  age,  who  have  opposed  Jesus  because  they  have 
been  aware  that  His  triumph  was  inimical  to  their 
selfish  interests.  Those  interests  may  be  their  sen- 
sual desires,  their  unjust  practices,  or  their  dispro- 
portionate and  unmerited  privileges. 

The  pursuance  of  evil  desires  is  apt  to  reveal  appal- 
ling abysses  in  human  nature.  The  evil  desire 
involves  means  for  its  accomplishment  that  hardly 
would  have  been  drea,med  of  at  first,  but  which  the 
desire  appropriates  and  approves.  The  unholy  am- 
bition of  Macbeth  drags  after  it  Duncan's  murder. 
The  self-interest  of  the  scribes,  untouched  by  any 
noble  consideration,  drags  after  it  that  astounding 
charge  that  Jesus  was  in  league  with  Satan  (Mk. 
3:22). 

As  we  look  into  this  record  of  the  attitude  of  men 
toward  Jesus  when  He  Avas  on  earth,  we  cannot  fail 
to  see  in  it  permanent  and  eternal  features.  As  with 
the  point  of  a  graver's  burin  we  see  delineated  here 
the  relationship  of  the  men  and  women  of  to-day — our 
own  relationship — to  Jesus  Christ. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

An  Exposition  of  the  Kingdom. 
Mt.  13:1-53;  Mk.  4:26-29. 

Immediately  after  the  representatives  of  the 
ecclesiastical  party  at  Jerusalem  had  charged  Jesus 
with  being  in  league  with  Satan  He  changed  the 
method  of  His  teaching.  Heretofore  He  had  spoken 
with  a  plainness  and  directness  which  made  His 
meaning  unmistakable.  From  this  point  He  made 
a  large  use  of  parables,  which,  to  a  certain  extent, 
veiled  His  teachings  in  the  minds  of  those  who  lacked 
spiritual  insight.  Several  considerations  led  Jesus 
to  adopt  this  method.  It  lessened  the  irritation  and 
consequent  opposition  which  the  previous  method 
had  aroused.  The  multitude  understood  what  met 
the  ear  without  apprehending  all  its  implications  and 
suggestions.  They  were  prevented  from  fully  under- 
standing that  they  might  not  misunderstand.  Again, 
the  very  capacity  to  apprehend  His  teachings  sifted 
His  followers.  Few  better  tests  could  have  been 
applied  to  the  future  preachers  of  the  truths  of  the 
kingdom  than  that  of  spiritual  insight  (Mk.  4:24). 
Furthermore,  no  more  effective  way  could  have  been 
devised  for  lodging  the  truth  permanently  in  the 
souls  of  men.  A  proposition,  no  matter  how  precisely 
worded,  is  soon  forgotten.  A  story  that  embodies 
the  truth  lingers  long  in  the  memory  and,  if  it  has 
human  interest,  is  associated  in  many  ways  with 
the  experiences  of  life.  Though  the  full  import  of 
such  a  story  may  not  be  at  first  apprehended,  it  is 
present  in  the  memory  to  reveal  its  significance  when 
reflection,  the  emergencies  of  life,  or  the  growth  of 
spiritual  appreciation  prepare  the  way  (Mk.4:22). 

Matthew,  with  much  skill,  has  grouped  our  Lord's 
parables  of  the   kingdom  into   a  progressive  series, 

75 


76 


The  Great  Ministry 


which  is  characterized  by  a  fine  Hterary  unity.  The 
first  parable,  commonly  called  The  Sower,  portrays 
the  origin  of  the  kingdom  in  the  word  of  God  (Mk. 
4:14)  and  the  way  the  fruitage  of  the  word  in  human 
life  is  dependent  upon  the  disposition  and  environ- 
ment of  those  to  whom  it 
comes  (Mk. 4:15-20).  The 
interesting  question  at  once 
arises  whether  or  not  the 
individual  is  wholly  respon- 
sible for  the  conditions 
which  determine  the  fate  of 
"the  word"  in  his  own  heart. 
The  plain  inference  from 
the  teaching  of  the  parable 
is  that  while  his  responsi- 
bility is  not  complete,  it  is 
sufficient  to  make  him,  in 
a  measure,  accountable  for 
the  result.  If  Satan  had 
had  no  previous  welcome 
he  could  not  take  away 
"the  word  which  had  been 
sown";  if  the  cares  of  the  world  and  the  false  at- 
tractions of  riches  had  not  beguiled  the  spirit,  the 
word  would  not  have  been  choked.  This  is  in  accord 
with  a  clear,  but  frequently  disregarded  teaching  of 
Jesus,  that  a  man's  acceptance  or  rejection  of  Him 
is  often  determined  by  his  previous  attitude  toward 
the  dictates  of  righteousness  (Jo.  3:20,  21;  16:9). 

But  this  kingdom,  which  springs  out  of  the  response 
of  the  individual  soul  to  the  word  of  God,  exists  in 
two  spheres — in  that  of  the  soul  of  the  individual, 
and  in  that  of  the  organized  life  of  the  time.  It 
exists  in  the  heart  of  the  disciple,  and  it  exists  in 
the  world.  The  teaching  of  the  parable  of  the  tares 
in  the  field  is  twofold;  that  the  kingdom  as  a  world- 
fact  is  of  a  mixed  nature — tares  are  mingled  with 


From  "  Leeper  photograpbH,"    copyriglit,  191)2. 

Path  through  the  Fields. 

Illustrating  the  wayside  hearer. 


An  Exposition  of  the  Kingdom  77 

the  wheat — and  that  violent  methods  of  uprooting 
acknowledged  evils  may  be  hurtful  to  the  good.  The 
kingdom  in  the  sphere  of  the  individual  life  does  not 
tolerate  evil;  the  kingdom  as  a  world-force  exists  in 
the  midst  of  evil;  it  repudiates  drastic  methods  of 
dealing  with  evil,  and  it  waits  for  the  final  complete 
triumph  of  the  good  "until  the  harvest." 

If  we  add  to  the  parables  of  the  mustard  seed  (Mt. 
13:31,32)  and  of  the  leaven  (Mt.  13:33)  that  of  the 
growing  seed  (Mk.  4:26-29),  we  have  Jesus'  full 
thought  as  to  the  expansion  of  the  kingdom.  It  goes 
back  to  the  smallest  beginnings;  it  progresses  through 
its  silently  penetrating  and  transforming  power,  and 
it  is  marked  by  the  irresistible  energy  of  a  vital  pro- 
cess. 

The  parables  of  the  hid  treasure  and  of  the  merchant 
seeking  pearls  illustrate  the  ways  in  which  men  come 
into  the  kingdom.  A  man  walking  over  a  field, 
thinking  of  other  things,  happens  upon  a  hidden 
treasure.  The  parable  reminds  us  of  the  way  the 
kingdom  came  to  the  woman  of  Samaria.  She  went 
out  to  draw  water,  and  she  found  the  "water  of  life. " 
On  the  other  hand,  we  have  the  trader  in  jewels 
traveling  here  and  there  of  set  purpose  seeking  the 
choicest  pearls.  He  reminds  us  of  Nicodemus,  who 
came  deliberately  to  Jesus,  honestly  seeking  spiritual 
life.  The  common  point  in  the  two  parables  is  the 
way  the  man  walking  in  the  field  and  the  merchant 
treated  what  they  found.  They  had  a  sense  of  values. 
As  we  say  in  common  speech,  "they  knew  a  good 
thing  when  they  saw  it."  Their  appreciation  of 
their  discoveries  revolutionized  their  perspectives. 
The  treasure  and  the  pearl  became  of  transcendent 
worth.  Their  possessions  looked  so  mean  and  small 
that  they  at  once  sold  them  all,  in  order  to  acquire 
the  thing  of  supreme  value.  The  kingdom  comes  to 
men  in  different  wa^^s,  but  all  those  who  enter  it 
have  this  characteristic — they  see  its  worth  and  sub- 
ordinate all  other  considerations  to  its  demands. 


78  The  Great  Ministry 

In  the  last  parable  of  the  series  (Mt.  13:47-50) 
Jesus  reinforces  His  interpretation  of  a  feature  of 
the  parable  of  the  tares  (Mt.  13:41,42).  The  mixed 
nature  of  the  kingdom  is  not  permanent.  Human 
history  and  the  evolution  of  the  kingdom  are  moving 
toward  the  climax  of  separations.  In  both  parables 
the  significant  phrase  occurs,  "So  shall  it  be  in  the 
end  of  the  world"  (Mt.  13:40,  49).  That  is  Jesus' 
forecast  of  His  final  triumph.  He  not  only  does  not 
see  evil  victorious  over  good.  He  does  not  even  see 
evil  existing  with  good.  What  He  sees  is  the  over- 
whelming conquest  of  evil. 


CHAPTER  XX. 
The  Finger  of  God. 

Mt.  9:27-34;   Mk.  4:35  —  5:43. 

After  unfolding  the  truths  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
to  the  multitudes  in  a  series  of  parables,  Jesus  appears 
to  have  sought  retirement  by  crossing  the  lake  with 
His  disciples  from  Capernaum  to  a  point  on  the  east 
shore.  The  tempest  which  arose  while  the  little 
group  was  sailing  across  the  Sea  of  Galilee  (Mk.  4:35, 
36)  gave  the  first  occasion  for  the  display  of  divine 
power  (vss.  37-41).     On  the  further  side  of  the  lake 


«..        .  From  a  photograph. 

Tiberias. 
A  nuidern  city  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee.     (View  Jrum  the  water.; 

He  met  the  demoniac  whom  He  healed  (Mk.  5:8). 
The  next  day  He  cast  a  demon  out  of  a  dumb  man 
(Mt.  9:32-34),  at  which  the  Pharisees  again  charged 
Him  with  being  in  league  with  Satan.  On  returning 
to  Capernaum  Jairus  besought  Him  to  heal  his  daugh- 
ter (Mk.  5:21-24).  While  our  Lord  was  on  the  way 
to  Jairus'  house,  a  woman  secretly  touched  the  hem 
of  His  garment  and  was  instantly  healed  of  a  long- 
standing, hopeless  disease  (Mk.  S -.25-29).  In  the 
meantime  word  came  from  Jairus'  house  that  his 
daughter  had  died,  and  hence  it  would  be  useless  for 

79 


80  The  Great  Ministry 

Jesus  to  proceed.  After  encouraging  the  stricken 
father,  Jesus  went  on  to  the  house  and  restored  the 
young  girl  to  Hfe  (Mk.  5:35-43).  Soon  after  He  gave 
sight  to  two  blind  men  (Mt.  9:27-31). 

A  study  of  these  six  wonderful  deeds  of  mercy 
naturally  brings  before  us  the  whole  subject  of  the 
miraculous  element  in  the  gospel  story.  Many  at- 
tempts have  been  made,  especially  during  the  last 
half  century,  to  dissect  this  element  out  of  the  New 
Testament  records.  Undoubtedly  it  can  be  done, 
but  what  is  left  is  strangely  disfigured.  The  story 
of  the  miracles  runs  through  the  texture,  like  silken 
threads  woven  into  a  cloth  of  wool.  You  can  dis- 
tinguish the  threads,  b'^.t  you  cannot  pull  them  out 
without  ruining  the  fabric. 

Apart  from  the  action  of  the  free  human  personality, 
the  Bible  knows  nothing  of  second  causes.  In  the 
eyes  of  the  Biblical  writers  the  operations  of  nature 
are  not  the  product  of  a  machine,  which  God  has 
constructed  with  more  or  less  skill,  and  set  going. 
The  thought  of  the  Bible  is  that  God  is  present  in  all 
His  works.  The  sun  rises  through  His  power  directly 
exerted;  the  rain  falls;  the  seasons  change.  While 
transcendent  over  nature,  God  is  immanent  in  nature, 
and  He  Himself  is  a  free  personalit}^  The  so-called 
"laws  of  nature"  or  "the  order  of  nature"  are  simply 
the  usual  methods  of  His  action.  But  He  is  no  more 
controlled  by  a  rule  outside  of  Himself  than  a  man 
is  compelled  to  deal  with  his  affairs  by  one  method. 
Beyond  a  doubt,  however,  the  divine  activity  is  so 
uniform  that  it  requires  a  peculiar  quality  and  weight 
of  evidence  to  lead  us  to  believe  in  any  variation  what- 
ever from  it.  This  clearly  is  the  view  of  Jesus.  In 
reply  to  the  charge  that  He  performed  His  wonderful 
works  by  being  in  league  with  Satan,  He  said,  "If  I 
by  the  finger  of  God  cast  out  demons,  then  is  the 
kingdom  of  God  come  upon  you"  (Lu.  11:20).  His 
miracles,  in  other  words,  were  the  direct  work  of  the 


The  Finger  of  God  81 

hand  of  God.  God  is  not  in  a  distant  heaven ;  He 
has  not  constructed  a  machine,  as  a  man  might  con- 
struct a  thirty-day  clock  and,  having  set  it  going, 
leave  it  to  itself.  Jesus  says,  God  is  here,  and  the 
miracle  is  the  work  of  His  hand. 

The  later  expositions  of  the  theory  of  evolution, 
and  the  astonishing  discoveries  of  physicists  as  to  the 
constitution  of  matter  are  strikingly  confirming  the 
Biblical  view  of  the  relation  of  God  to  nature.  As  a 
very  recent  writer  says,  "Without  the  spiritual  the 
physical  universe  has  no  ground  of  being,  and  nothing 
exists,  not  the  least  fraction  of  the  material,  still  less 
anything  of  human  affection,  S5^mpathy  and  personal 
life-force,  apart  from  the  Universal  Life." 

It  is  necessary  to  remember  that  the  value  we 
attach  to  the  evidence  for  events  "that  cannot  be 
accounted  for  by  the  laws  of  nature,  but  imply  the 
operation  of  a  causal  energy  superior  to  their  action," 
will  largely  depend  on  the  connection  in  which  these 
events  occur.  It  is  incredible  that  God  should  vary 
from  the  usual  method  of  His  action  for  a  trivial 
cause.  The  question  is  vastly  important:  Is  the 
occasion  worthy,  or  does  this  extraordinary  event 
stand  apart,  isolated,  without  rational  relation,  a  mere 
prodig}^,  a  wonder  in  the  air?  The  Lusitania  does 
not  stop  when  a  little  girl  loses  her  doll  over  the  rail ; 
but  at  the  cry,  "Man  overboard,"  the  bell  rings,  the 
mighty  engines  cease  their  throbbing  beat,  the 
giant  shaft  and  the  great  propellers  no  longer  revolve, 
and  the  majestic  Cunarder  comes  to  a  full  stop  in  her 
tremendous  rush  across  the  Atlantic.  In  considering 
the  credibility  of  the  miracles  of  our  Lord,  we  must 
take  into  account  His  character  and  Person;  the  vast 
Messianic  prophecy  and  hope  running  through  history 
like  a  line  of  light  which  He  fulfils;  the  purpose  of 
His  mission  to  establish  the  kingdom  of  God  in  the 
earth  by  saving  men  from  sin,  and  the  mighty  wit- 
ness of  Christian  experience  to  the  eternal  life  which 


82  The  Great  Ministry 

He  imparts  to  those  in  fellowship  with  Him.  If 
Christ  Himself  is  simply  the  product  of  "the  order 
of  nature,"  probably  no  evidence  from  documents 
or  ancient  history  could  lead  us  to  accept  the  miracles 
attributed  to  Him.  But  if  He  is  the  supreme  char- 
acter, and  His  Person  is  divine  as  well  as  human,  if 
He  is  the  Messiah  whom  the  prophets  discerned  from 
afar,  if  He  founded  the  actual  kingdom  of  God  in  the 
earth,  if  through  Him  weak  and  sinful  men  are  con- 
scious of  sharing  even  here  the  eternal  life,  all  doubts 
and  difficulties  are  paled  like  the  light  of  candles 
before  the  brightness  and  glory  of  the  morning  sun. 
The  reason  for  the  unusual  working  of  the  hand  of 
God  in  human  history  is  not  slight  and  trivial  but 
splendid  and  adequate. 

In  His  own  day  Jesus  said,  "If  I  by  the  finger  of 
God  cast  out  demons,  then  is  the  kingdom  of  God 
come  upon  you. "  The  men  who  saw  those  mighty 
works  had  an  immediate  evidence  which  we  lack, 
but  we  see  the  kingdom  of  God  as  they  did  not  and 
could  not  see  it,  and  we  can  say  with  believing  and 
adoring  hearts,  The  kingdom  of  God  has  come  through 
the  hand  of  God,  and  the  wonder  and  power  of  that 
coming  make  the  mighty  works  of  the  Son  of  God, 
through  whom  it  came,  reasonable  and  probable. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

The  Conditions  of  Effective  Christian  Work. 
Mt.  9:35—11:1;   Mk.  6:l-6a. 

Soon  after  the  raising  of  Jairus'  daughter,  Jesus  ap- 
pears to  have  returned  to  Nazareth,  accompanied  by 
the  Twelve.  He  found  His  townsmen  still  indisposed 
to  accept  Him.  They  did  not,  however,  as  during 
His  former  visit,  attempt  to  treat  Him  with  violence 
(Lu.  4:16-30).  Jesus  had  become  almost  a  national 
character,  and  doubtless  many  of  the  Nazarenes  felt 
a  good  deal  of  satisfaction  in  the  prominence  of  one 
who  had  been  brought  up  in  their  village,  which 
does  not  appear  to  have  borne  any  too  good  a  name 
(Jo.  1:46).  The  circumstance,  however,  that  they 
could  recall  the  humble  surroundings  of  His  early 
life  begot  in  their  minds  a  fatal  prejudice  against 
His  claims. 

At  this  juncture  Jesus  adopted  a  comprehensive 
scheme  for  the  evangelization  of  Galilee.  The  pur- 
pose of  this  plan  was  twofold — actually  to  evangelize 
the  northern  province,  and  to  give  His  disciples 
needed  practice  in  this  kind  of  work.  Heretofore 
our  Lord  usually  accompanied  His  disciples  on  their 
preaching  tours;  or,  to  put  it  more  accurately,  they 
had  gone  with  Him,  and  assisted  Him.  Now  He 
does  not  go  with  them,  but  sends  them  forth  by  two 
and  two. 

It  may  be  alleged  with  some  show  of  reason  that 
the  instructions  Jesus  gave  His  disciples,  just  before 
they  left  for  this  evangelistic  tour,  were  so  related 
to  the  specific  needs  of  Galilee  at  that  time  that  they 
have  little  value  for  us.  We  live  in  a  different  world 
— a  world  of  steam  cars  and  telephones,  of  hotels 
and  a  commercialized  social  order — and  these  direc- 
tions   about   coats    and   shoes,    about   depending   on 

83 


84  The  Great  Minislry 

hospitalit)',  and  about  the  Avay  to  meet  persecution 
are  exceedingly  remote  from  modern  conditions. 
They  contemplate  a  different  world  from  that  in 
which  we  live.  Such  statements  are  true,  and  it  is 
only  when  we  penetrate  to  the  principle  and  spirit 
underlying  these  precepts  that  we  gain  from  them 
any  practical  guidance  in  present-day  conditions. 
The  proper,  indeed,  the  necessary,  inquiry  when  we 
study  this  passage  is,  What  principles  did  Jesus  lay 
dow^n  as  to  effective  evangelization? 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  clear  that  Jesus  was  provid- 
ing for  the  extension  of  His  kingdom  through  the 
agency  of  w^ell-trained  men.  Jesus  did  not  b}'  any 
means  welcome  to  this  public  work  every  one  whose 
heart  responded  to  Him  (Mk.  5:19).  The  Twelve 
had  already  enjo^^ed  a  superb  initiation  into  the  work 
of  the  Gospel  ministry,  and  this  preaching  tour  w^as 
to  give  them  still  larger  discipline  and  experience. 
The  first  ministers  of  the  Gospel  were  not  only  picked 
but  trained  men.  The  "call"  was  not  enough,  or 
rather  the  "call"  was  not  simply  a  call  to  service,  it 
was  a  call  to  acquire  equipment  in  order  that  they 
might  render  service.  The  Christian  church  has  not 
misapprehended  the  ideas  of  Jesus  setting  apart 
certain  men  for  the  work  of  the  ministry,  and  in 
seeking  to  give  them  the  best  possible  training  for 
this  service.  The  specific  point  at  which  some 
churches  have  misinterpreted  Jesus  has  been  in 
regarding  these  ministers  as  priests,  mediating  be- 
tween God  and  men  by  virtue  of  peculiar  supernatural 
endowments,  rather  than  as  prophets,  speaking  the 
good  tidings  to  men,  which  their  hearers  are  to 
receive,  and  upon  which  they  are  to  act.  The  ques- 
tion as  to  what  sort  of  training  those  who  are  to 
enter  the  Christian  ministry  should  receive  is  always 
open.  It  is  receiving  much  attention  to-day,  and 
various  proposals  are  urged  for  a  revision  of  the  work 
of  our  theological  seminaries.     This  is  right  and  wise. 


The  Conditions  of   Efjcctivc   Chrisiiun   Work     85 

Such  questions  are  to  be  answered  upon  the  broadest 
consideration  as  to  the  best  way  of  meeting  actual 
conditions.  But  the  question  as  to  the  need  of  train- 
ing, the  most  adequate  the  wisdom  of  the  time  can 
afford,  is  not  open — either  in  the  New  Testament  or 
in  the  dehberations  of  our  modern  churches. 

Again,  our  Lord's  instructions  suggest  the  mani- 
fold ministry  of  the  Gospel  to  the  needs  of  men.  The 
Twelve  were  not  only  to  proclaim  the  message  of 
Jesus  but  they  were  to  do  the  works  of  Jesus  (Mt. 
10:8).  It  has  been  impossible  to  seduce  the  Roman 
church  into  the  practice  of  remanding  ministr}'  to 
the  body  to  the  care  of  the  state.  The  hospital,  the 
dispensary,  the  orphanage,  the  refuge,  are  under  the 
care  of  the  church,  supported  by  the  church,  and  one 
who  receives  these  ministries  cannot  be  unaware  that 
it  is  the  church  which  is  extending  this  help.  There 
is  enormous  power  over  men  in  this  ministry.  It 
makes  the  spiritual  ministry  more  intelligible;  it 
proceeds  on  the  sound  principle  that  a  man  is  a 
unity  and  not  a  collection  of  unrelated  compartments. 
Some  of  the  most  thoughtful  leaders  of  our  Protestant 
churches  are  now  asking  whether  Protestantism,  by 
consenting  to  the  secularization  of  the  very  charities 
which  Protestant  Christians  so  largely  support,  is 
not  failing  to  utilize  a  superb  opportunity  for  extend- 
ing the  kingdom  of  God.  We  are  understanding  the 
worth  of  medical  missions  in  our  foreign  missionary 
work.  Unless  present  indications  are  misleading, 
our  American  Protestant  churches  are  coming  to  a 
new  appreciation  of  the  necessity  of  doing  the  works 
of  Christ  at  home,  and  of  doing  these  works  them- 
selves— not  simply  contributing  the  money  which  is 
administered  without  any  odor  of  the  love  of  God. 

Furthermore,  our  Lord's  directions  bring  into  a 
bright  light  the  necessity  of  His  own  spirit  in  this 
vast  enterprise  of  bringing  the  Gospel  to  men.  He 
did  not  forget  the  dictates  of  courtesy,  and  He  cau- 


86  The  Great  Ministry 

tions  them  about  this  (Mt.  10:12).  He  read  character 
and  discriminated  between  men  on  that  basis.  He 
urges  them  to  do  this  (Mt.  10:11,  17).  He  showed 
directness  and  decision  in  dealing  with  specific  cases 
(Lu.  9:57-62);  the  disciples  are  to  manifest  the  same 
(Mt.  10:13-15).  He  was  absolutely  devoted  to  the 
will  of  His  Father,  and  free  from  anxieties  because 
He  was  in  the  Father's  hand.  That  was  the  very 
spirit  in  which  He  counseled  the  Twelve  to  go  forth 
(Mt.  10:19,  20,  28-33).  It  seems  as  if  the  simple 
statement,  "It  is  enough  for  the  disciple  that  he  be 
as  his  teacher"  (Mt.  10:25)  crystalHzed  the  whole 
idea.  The  imperative  condition  of  successful  effort 
in  the  kingdom  is  that  the  disciple  shall  be  as  his 
Master.  We  shall  find  it  very  difficult  to  improve 
upon  the  ideas  of  Jesus  as  to  the  conditions  of  suc- 
cessful Christian  work — adequate  training  for  it;  the 
proclamation  of  His  message  with  the  doing  of  His 
works;    the  possession  of  His  spirit. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

A  Great  Temptation. 

Mk.  6:14-46;  Jo.  6:1-15. 

Three  events  conspired  to  force  upon  Jesus  a  de- 
cision as  to  whether  or  not  He  would  permit  His 
countrymen  to  make  Him  their  king. 

The  first  was  the  murder  of  John  the  Baptist  by 
Herod.  The  circumstances  of  this  foul  deed  are 
recounted  with  lifelike  fidelity  in  the  gospel  of  Mark 
(6:14-29).  None  of  the  Evangelists  describes  the 
effect  of  this  atrocity  upon  the  people  as  a  whole, 


From  *'Leeper  photographs,*'  copyright,  1903. 

The  Landing-place  at  Bethsaida  Julias. 

Showing  the  entrance  of  the  Jordan  river  into  the  Sea  of  Galilee.    It  was  near  lierc  that  the 
feeding  of  tlie  five  tliousaud  took  plaee. 

but  it  requires  only  a  slight  exercise  of  an  historical 
imagination  to  reproduce  the  main  features  of  the 
situation.  Modern  students  of  New  Testament  times 
are  inclined  to  believe  that  the  preaching  of  John  the 
Baptist  moved  Palestine  profoundly.  John  seems  to 
have  had  an  enormous  following,  and  his  message 
struck  home  to  the  hearts  of  his  hearers.  When, 
therefore,  Herod  Antipas — the  tetrarch  of  Galilee 
and  Perea,  the  official  representative  of  the  hated 
Roman   power — apprehended  John,   and   imprisoned 

87 


88  Tlic  Great  Ministry 

him  in  the  fortress  of  Machserus,  because  the  Baptist 
had  ventured  to  apply  some  of  the  universally- 
recognized  principles  of  morality  to  his  conduct;  and 
when,  in  subservience  to  the  wiles  of  two  shameless 
women,  Herod  beheaded  John,  the  popular  indigna- 
tion against  the  tetrarch  and  the  Roman  power  must 
have  reached  an  intensity  that  made  the  public  mind 
ready  for  a  revolt.  Many  a  revolution  has  advanced 
to  success  from  a  less  substantial  motive. 

In  the  second  place,  the  results  of  the  third  preach- 
ing tour,  which  was  in  progress  at  the  time  John  was 
beheaded,  appear  to  have  been  entirely  satisfactory. 
The  disciples,  going  out  by  two  and  two,  found  a 
ready  response  to  their  message,  and  their  works  of 
healing  reinforced  the  spiritual  impression.  The  con- 
fidence that  Jesus  would  show  Himself  to  be  the 
expected  Messiah  came  to  be  very  widely  shared.  We 
can  at  once  appreciate  how  this  strong  public  opin- 
ion was  reinforced  by  the  news  of  the  tragedy  of  the 
Baptist's  death.  Calm  students  of  politics,  for  there 
were  such  in  Galilee  and  at  Jerusalem,  could  see  a 
situation  forming  in  which  Jesus,  especially  if  He 
had  the  miraculous  powers  usually  attributed  to  Him, 
could  easily  set  up  a  power  that  might  hold  its  own 
even  against  Rome. 

The  third  factor  was  the  miracle  of  the  feeding  of 
the  five  thousand,  which  Jesus  wrought  at  "the 
psychological  moment,"  when  public  opinion  was 
crystallizing  in  favor  of  making  Him  king.  The 
supernatural  resources  displayed  in  this  miracle,  and 
the  number  of  persons  affected  by  it  removed  the 
last  doubt  as  to  the  success  of  a  revolution  which 
Jesus  should  lead.  Even  Caesar's  famous  tenth 
legion  would  be  helpless  before  a  power  that  could 
feed  a  throng  with  a  few  loaves  and  small  fishes. 
With  such  a  power  as  this  upon  their  side  the  Jews 
need  take  no  account  of  the  soldiers  they  could  enlist, 
of  the  equipment  they  could  furnish,  of  the  treasure 


A  Great   Temptation  89 

they  could  provide.  No  matter  what  their  resources, 
be  they  much  or  httle,  success  was  guaranteed  from 
the  start. 

An  analysis,  therefore,  of  the  situation  shows  that 
the  author  of  the  fourth  gospel  was  not  indulging  in 
a  rhetorical  flourish  when  he  wrote,  "Jesus  therefore 
perceiving  that  they  were  about  to  come  and  take 
him  by  force,  to  make  him  king,  withdrew  again  into 
the  mountain  himself  alone"  (Jo.  6:15).  These 
words  are  an  exact  outline  of  the  state  of  things  at 
this  juncture;  and  Jesus  was  compelled  by  events  to 
make  a  decision  that  is  comparable  with  His  resist- 
ance of  the  temptations  in  the  wilderness  at  the  out- 
set of  His  ministry. 

Most  expositors  and  authors  of  lives  of  Jesus  pay 
far  too  little  attention  to  this  night  upon  the  mountain. 
In  a  real  sense  Jesus  had  come  to  a  parting  of  the 
ways.  We  have  seen  that  in  meeting  the  temptations 
that  came  to  Him  immediately  after  His  baptism 
Jesus  decided  that  His  powers  must  be  devoted  un- 
selfishly to  the  highest  spiritual  ends  (Chapter  V  of 
this  book).  Now  there  was  an  opportunity  to  revise 
that  decision.  Indeed,  the  course  of  events,  in  a 
way,  had  compelled  Him  to  consider  whether  or  not 
He  would  yield  to  the  pressure  of  public  opinion. 
There  was  an  easy  way  and  a  hard  way  before  Him. 
The  one  path  led  to  a  splendid  temporal  sovereignty, 
not  by  any  means  divorced  from  spiritual  influences; 
the  other  path  led  to  rejection  by  His  own  people, 
and  the  horrors  of  the  cross.  We  have  not  pene- 
trated to  the  inner  life  of  Jesus  until  we  come  to  a 
satisfactory  answer  to  the  question.  Why  did  Jesus 
so  absolutely  reject  every  secular  means  for  founding 
His  kingdom?  And  the  satisfactory  answer,  bring- 
ing with  it  great  insights,  comes  when  we  realize  the 
nature  of  Christ's  kingdom,  and  its  dependence  upon 
spiritual  agencies.  Jesus  might  have  done  His 
nation  and  the  world  at  large  enormous  good  by  yield- 


90  The  Great  Ministry 

ing  to  the  pressure  to  accept  an  earthly  kingship. 
But  He  would  not  have  conferred  upon  the  world  the 
highest  good,  the  good  it  most  needs,  if  He  had  been 
diverted  from  His  purpose  of  winning  the  spiritual 
allegiance  of  free  personalities  through  the  revelation 
of  the  character  of  God. 


CHAPTER     XXIII. 
The  Parting  of  the  Ways. 

Mt.  14:24-36;   Mk.  6:47— 7:23;    Jo.  6:16-71. 

It  became  evident  to  Jesus  that  He  could  not  per- 
mit the  people  to  remain  in  doubt  much  longer  as 
to  the  real  character  of  His  purposes.  The  miscon- 
ceptions they  entertained  about  Him  were  natural, 
almost  inevitable.  All  that  the  New  Testament  says, 
and  the  disclosures  of  long  centuries  of  Christian 
history  have  not  al- 
ways emancipated 
the  minds  of  ear- 
nest-hearted follow- 
ers of  Jesus  from 
kindred  misinter- 
pretations. It  be- 
came imperative 
that  Jesus  should 
put  a  stop  to  the 
false  impressions  as 
to  His  mission 
which  were  giving 
rise  to  the  demand 
that  He  should  as- 
sert a  temporal  sov- 
ereignty. An  opportunity  presented  itself  the  day 
after  the  five  thousand  were  fed.  During  the  night 
Jesus  had  appeared  walking  on  the  water  to  the  relief 
of  His  distressed  companions  (Mt.  14:23-33).  The 
miracle  deeply  confirmed  the  conviction  of  the  disci- 
ples that  Jesus  was  the  Son  of  God  (vs.  33).  They 
needed  the  strong  faith  begotten  by  the  experiences 
of  the  night  for  what  awaited  them.  Immediately 
on  reaching  land  in  the  early  morning  Jesus  seems  to 
have  gone  to  Capernaum,  and  there  many  of  those 

91 


From  a  stereograph,  copyright  bj  EI,  C.  White  Co. 

Ruins  at  Tell  Hum. 

The  probable  site  of  Capernaum. 


92  The  Great  Ministry 

who  had  been  fed  by  the  miracle  of  the  previous 
day,  after  a  thorough  search  of  the  whole  country- 
side, found  Him  in  the  synagogue. 

Jesus  improved  the  occasion  to  make  the  most  dis- 
tinct exposition,  if  we  except  the  implications  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  which  may  not  have  been 
widely  known  at  this  time,  that  He  had  yet  given  of 
His  mission  and  of  His  relationship  to  men.  In  the 
fourth  gospel  we  have  an  unusually  full  summary  of 
what  He  said.  It  is  commonly  known  as  the  dis- 
course on  the  Bread  of  Life. 

The  imagery  of  the  discourse  grows  directly  out  of 
the  fact  that  the  men  before  Him,  within  twenty-four 
hours,  had  been  fed  by  a  miracle.  Their  immediate 
hope  was  that  another  miracle  of  the  same  sort  might 
be  wrought.  For  a  moment  the  vision  of  a  kingdom, 
with  Jesus  at  its  head,  in  which  they  would  be  relieved 
of  the  necessity  of  work  for  daily  bread  swept  before 
their  mind.  This  was  the  audience  to  which  Jesus 
spoke  about  the  bread  of  life. 

The  course  of  Jesus'  thought  closely  resembles  that 
in  the  conversation  with  the  woman  of  Samaria. 
The  purpose  in  both  is  the  same;  the  figures  are 
similar.  She  was  thinking  of  water,  and  said,  "Sir, 
give  me  this  water,  that  I  thirst  not"  (Jo.  4:15). 
They  were  thinking  of  bread,  and  said,  "Lord,  ever- 
more give  us  this  bread"  (Jo.  6:34).  In  both  cases 
Jesus  used  the  thing  which  satisfies  a  want  of  the 
body  as  a  symbol  of  the  satisfaction  of  the  wants  of 
the  spirit  that  God  had  provided  for  men  in  Himself, 
and  so  He  could  say  to  the  woman,  "Whosoever 
drinketh  of  the  water  that  I  shall  give  him  shall 
never  thirst"  (Jo.  4:14),  and  to  these  representatives 
of  the  people  at  Capernaum,  "I  am  the  bread  of  life; 
he  that  cometh  to  me  shall  not  hunger,  and  he  that 
believeth  on  me  shall  never  thirst"  (Jo.  6:35). 

The  woman  of  Samaria  seems  to  have  received  a 
suggestion  of  the  truth  that  the  water  springing  up 


The  Parting  of  the  Ways  93 

in  Jacob's  well  was  a  symbol  of  the  eternal  fountain; 
and  at  Capernaum  Jesus  made  it  so  clear  that  there 
was  no  longer  any  room  for  misunderstanding  that 
His  aim  was  to  meet  those  deeper  wants  of  the  human 
spirit,  of  which  the  hunger  of  the  body  is  only  a 
reflection  in  the  realm  of  the  sensuous. 

At  Capernaum,  however,  He  was  more  explicit 
than  in  Samaria  as  to  the  relationship  of  men  to  this 
provision  of  God  for  men.  He  explained  that  what 
is  to  satisfy  human  need  is  not  something  that  He 
bestows  apart  from  Himself.  It  is  not  a  cup  of  water 
or  a  loaf  of  bread  thought  of  as  something  external 
to  Himself  and  to  them,  but  the  water  and  the  bread 
are  Himself.     He  Himself  is  the  gift  of  God. 

Some  of  the  current  representations  of  the  way  of 
salvation  do  not  rise  to  the  height  of  this  great  argu- 
ment. The  gift  of  God  in  Christ  is  not  like  a  ticket, 
or  a  coin,  or  a  cup  of  water,  or  a  loaf  of  bread,  that 
one  can  take  from  the  hand  of  another  and  remain  the 
same  man  afterwards  as  before.  The  gift  of  God  is  a 
fellowship,  and  no  one  can  enter  into  a  personal 
fellowship  with  another  and  remain  the  same  man. 
His  response  to  the  fellowship  opens  his  inner  life 
to  the  personality  that  he  welcomes.  Nothing  does 
more  to  determine  character  than  our  fellowships. 
The  forces  of  heredity  and  environment  are  almost 
weak  in  comparison  with  the  tremendous  reactions 
of  personalities  upon  each  other.  One  can  be  un- 
afTected  in  his  deeper  life  by  external  gifts,  no  matter 
how  glad  he  may  be  to  have  them,  but  one  cannot 
be  unaffected  even  to  the  very  springs  of  his  being 
by  the  fellowships  he  entertains.  That  is  why  the 
response  of  the  soul  to  the  fellowship  of  Jesus  Christ 
is  the  transforming  power  over  character,  and  to 
know  Him  is  eternal  Hfe  (Jo.  6:54;  17:3). 

This  is  the  thought  of  Jesus  in  the  figure  of  eating 
His  flesh  and  drinking  His  blood.  We  degrade  the 
whole  conception  when  we  forget  His  own  caution  in 


94  The  Great  Ministry 

this  very  passage  that  "it  is  the  spirit  that  giveth 
life;  the  flesh  profiteth  nothing"  (Jo.  6:63).  Jesus 
said  that  He  Himself  was  "the  bread  of  life,"  and 
that,  just  as  to  appropriate  bread  one  must  eat  it 
and  be  nourished  by  it,  so  to  appropriate  the  bread 
of  life  one  must  come  into  the  most  intimate  relations 
with  Him  that  the  constitution  of  personalities 
permits. 

It  is  not  in  the  least  surprising  that  the  proclama- 
tion of  these  spiritual  truths  alienated  and  angered 
those  v/ho  heard  Jesus  in  Capernaum.  They  saw  at 
once  that  it  was  no  longer  possible  to  believe  that  He 
could  be  used  to  bring  about  independence  of  Rome, 
or  even  to  give  them  bread  by  miracles.  "Upon  this 
many  of  his  disciples  went  back,  and  walked  no  more 
with  him"   (Jo.  6:66). 

We  cannot  miss  the  pathos  of  the  question  that  at 
this  juncture  our  Lord  addressed  to  the  Twelve, 
"Would  ye  also  go  away?"  But  the  instructions  of 
the  past  had  not  been  wholly  in  vain.  These  men 
had  begun  to  discern  through  the  lens  of  the  material 
fact  the  spiritual  realit3%  and  Simon  Peter  answered, 
"Lord,  to  whom  shall  we  go?  Thou  hast  the  words 
of  eternal  life.  And  we  have  believed  and  known 
that  thou  art  the  Holy  One  of  God"  (Jo.  6:68,  69). 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

The  Unity  of  the  Character  op  Jesus. 

Mk.  7:24— 8:22a. 

Most  human  personalities  disclose  a  lack  of  inner 
coherence,  harmony  and  unity.  They  have  unrelated 
and  uncoordinated  faculties,  impulses  and  tendencies. 
In  Kipling's  story  of  The  Ship  that  Found  Herself, 
most  men  can  read  a  searching  parable  of  their  own 
inner  lives.  The  several  parts  of  their  natures  do 
not  work  smoothly  together  and  contribute  their 
proper  service  toward  the  common  purpose.  Hence 
we  find  ourselves  and  others  full  of  surprises,  incon- 
sistencies  and   contradictions.     In   one    mood   or   in 


J^^^^^Srs:^^^:^^:'^^^a:,^ 


-,^->"f^\ 


v«*1 


^m^m 


Ruins  at  Tyre. 

one  set  of  circumstances  men  hardly  appear  to  be 
the  same  persons  that  they  show  themselves  to  be 
in  other  frames  of  mind  and  in  other  surroundings. 

Strictly  speaking  there  are  no  surprises  in  the  life 
of  Jesus.  We  may  wonder  at  the  plane  upon  which 
He  lived,  it  is  so  above  that  of  men;  we  may  be 
amazed  at  the  spirituality  of  His  purpose;  we  may 
be  astounded  at  the  w^a}"  He  subordinated  matchless 
resources  to  moral  influences  and  agencies,  but,  after 
all,  when  we  have  grasped  the  principles  that  con- 
trolled Him,  and  the  end  He  had  in  view,  His  career 

95 


96  The  Great  Ministry 

is  coherent  and  orderly.  The  element  of  surprise  is 
confined  to  the  personality  of  Jesus  itself,  not  to  its 
manifestations,  which  all  spring  from  and  illustrate 
a  spirit  at  peace  with  itself. 

The  incidents  recorded  of  our  Lord's  journeys  into 
the  borders  of  the  heathen  world  after  the  great  defec- 
tion at  Capernaum  illustrate  this  feature  of  His 
character.  In  these  incidents  the  surroundings  are 
different  from  those  which  occur  elsewhere  in  the 
gospels.  He  is  no  longer  on  Jewish  soil  where  the 
predominant  features  of  architecture,  language  or 
customs  reflect  the  life  of  the  Old  Testament.  In  the 
province  of  Syrophoenicia  He  came  in  contact  with 
the  old  Canaanitish  civilization  that  had  done  so 
much  to  expand  the  ideas  of  Israel  and  to  corrupt 
its  morals.  In  the  Greek  cities  to  the  west  of  the 
Jordan  and  in  Decapolis  He  was  in  the  atmosphere 
of  the  Greek  life  that  already  manifested  tokens  of 
decadence.  In  former  days  He  had  been  followed 
by  grateful,  applauding  multitudes.  Now  the  number 
of  His  companions  had  shrunken  to  the  Twelve,  with 
possibly  a  few  other  friends.  Hitherto  He  had  been 
engaged  in  an  aggressive  propaganda  among  the 
people  at  large.  The  masses  of  the  people  had  failed 
Him  as  absolutely  as  the  upper  classes.  Jesus  was 
not  misled  by  the  modern  fallacy  that  the  so-called 
"common  people"  are  morally  more  open-minded 
and  responsive  to  spiritual  appeals  than  the  privileged 
classes.  Probably  He  did  not  make  any  distinction 
between  ranks.  All  were  men,  and  He  knew  what 
was  within  man.  Now  that  the  masses  and  the  classes 
both  repudiated  Him,  He  abandoned  evangelistic 
work,  and  in  the  semi-seclusion  pf  these  journeys  into 
foreign  territory  devoted  Himself  to  the  instruction 
of  the  Twelve.  So  far  from  proclaiming  the  kingdom 
He  sought  obscurity,  and  especially  warned  those 
whom  He  healed  at  this  period  not  to  report  it  (Mk. 
8:22-30). 


The  Unity  of  the  Character  of  Jesus  97 

And  yet  we  feel  that  He  is  the  same  person.  We 
should  know  Him  anywhere.  The  changes  of  the 
outward  have  not  affected  the  inward,  which  can  be 
true  to  itself  and  manifest  itself  as  a  unity  in  any 
time  or  place. 

Three  prominent  events  of  this  period  strikingly 
illustrate  this  characteristic.  Jesus  is  the  same  sym- 
pathetic minister  to  human  suffering  in  Phoenicia  as 
in  Galilee.  The  correctness  of  this  statement  has 
sometimes  been  challenged.  It  has  been  said  that 
His  treatment  of  the  Canaanitish  woman  was  brusque 
to  the  point  of  harshness.  The  narrative,  perhaps, 
may  be  read  in  that  way,  but  such  an  interpretation 
misses  the  nuances  that  taught  the  disciples  an  impor- 
tant lesson.  Probably  their  attitude  toward  the 
Canaanitish  people,  the  hereditary  enemies  and  the 
corrupters  of  Israel,  was  that  of  poorly  concealed 
patronage,  if  not  contempt.  In  the  eyes  of  Peter 
and  the  rest  these  people  were  "dogs."  When  Jesus 
said,  "It  is  not  meet  to  take  the  children's  bread  and 
cast  it  to  the  dogs"  (Mk.  7:27),  He  was  using  the 
language  of  the  disciples,  and  there  was  something 
in  tone  or  eye  which  led  the  woman  to  see  that.  A 
slight  inflection  or  a  glance  would  be  sufficient.  The 
woman's  answer  was  thoroughly  sympathetic  with 
His  point  of  view.  She  might  be  a  "dog"  in  the 
eyes  of  Peter  and  the  rest,  but  she  knew  that  she  was 
not  so  in  His  eyes.  It  was  not  simply  her  persistence 
under  rebuke,  but  the  keen  insight  and  confidence  of 
her  faith  in  Jesus,  shown  in  her  apt  and  humble 
answer,  that  at  once  placed  her  in  the  same  rank 
with  the  Roman  centurion  (Mt.  8:10),  also  a  foreigner 
to  Israel. 

The  second  incident  was  the  feeding  of  the  four 
thousand.  The  miracle  so  resembles  the  feeding  of 
the  five  thousand  just  before  His  last  visit  to  Caper- 
naum, that  some  authorities  identify  the  two,  but 
the  language  in  Mk.  8:19,  20  is  decisive  against  that 


98  The  Great  Ministry 

interpretation.  The  occasions  were  very  different. 
The  four  thousand  must  have  been  largely  Gentile. 
He  showed  that  after  His  rejection  by  His  own 
people  His  attitude  toward  men  was  unchanged. 

The  rebuke  of  the  disciples  also  manifested  the 
same  devotion  to  spiritual  ends  which  marked  the 
program  adopted  at  the  temptation.  The  demand 
for  a  sign  in  the  sky  (Mk.  8:11-13)  has  a  close  resem- 
blance to  the  second  temptation  (Mt.  4:5,6).  Evi- 
dently the  disciples  were  disappointed  that  He  had 
not  acceded  to  this  demand.  His  caution,  "Take 
heed,  beware  of  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  [reliance 
on  externals]  and  the  leaven  of  Herod  [political  ambi- 
tion], "  met  this  precise  mood.  They  thought  that 
their  failure  to  take  a  supply  of  bread  was  the  point 
of  the  admonition,  but  He  reminded  them  at  once 
that  He  had  abundantly  shown  by  two  miracles  that 
He  could  supply  the  lack  of  bread  (Mk.  8:18-21). 
What  He  could  not  do  was  to  eradicate  from  their 
souls  the  confidence  in  externalities  and  the  worldli- 
ness  that  were  all  about  them,  unless  their  eyes  and 
ears  were  open  to  His  spiritual  message. 

These  weeks,  possibly  months,  after  the  rejection 
at  Capernaum  were  full  of  elements  of  discourage- 
ment. In  such  periods  brave  men  find  their  visions 
dissolving,  and  they  ask,  "What  is  the  use?"  Such 
experiences  transform  character,  and  make  men  hard 
and  cynical  and  bitter.  But  the  glimpses  we  have 
of  our  Lord  during  this  trying  time  disclose  the  same 
calmness  and  sympathy  and  insight  that  marked  the 
days  of  growing  favor. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 
The  Great  Confession. 

Mt.  16:13-28;   Mk.  8:22-26. 

Matthew  records  that  not  only  the  Pharisees  but  the 
Sadducees  asked  of  Jesus  a  sign  in  the  sky.  The 
phrase  "and  Sadducees"  (Mt.  16:1)  signifies  that  the 
two  hostile  parties  among  the  Jews  recognized  a 
common  danger  in  the  spread  of  the  influence  of  Jesus, 
and  forgetting  their  differences,  made  common  cause 
against  Him.     Jesus  saw  the  inevitable  end  of  this 


View  in  the  Lebanon  Mountains. 


From  a  photograph. 


combination.  The  two  parties  could  array  all  Juda- 
ism against  Him  and  in  all  likelihood  compass  His 
death. 

The  gospel  narrative  presents  some  striking  re- 
semblances to  the  masterpieces  of  Greek  tragedy.  At 
first  the  situation  appears  to  involve  countless  pos- 
sibilities as  to  the  final  issue ;  but,  as  we  follow  the  un- 
folding of  characters  and  events,  and  their  reactions, 
we  become  aware  that  the  process  is  moving  toward  an 

99 


100  The  Great  Ministry 

inevitable  end.  That  is  the  way  we  come  to  feel  as  we 
ponder  the  gospel  story.  In  view  of  the  personaHty 
of  Jesus,  and  the  characters,  ambitions,  and  preju- 
dices of  the  men  of  His  time,  who  had  the  places  of 
power,  there  was  no  other  possible  issue  than  the  death 
of  Jesus.  Our  Lord  Himself  saw  this  clearly,  and 
accepted  it. 

The  purpose  of  the  journey  from  the  shores  of  the 
Sea  of  Galilee  to  the  foot-hills  of  Hermon  was  that 
Jesus  and  the  Twelve  might  have  a  few  weeks  of  un- 
molested association  in  a  region  that  was  so  largely 
Gentile  that  the  fierce  Jewish  rancor  could  not  be 
easily  kindled.  It  was  on  this  journey  that  Jesus  ven- 
tured to  put  to  the  test  His  disciples'  recognition  of 
His  nature.  First  He  asked  them  who  men  said  He 
was.  Having  received  their  answer  He  passed  to  the 
close  and  momentous  question:  "But  who  say  ye  that 
I  am"  (Mt.  16:15)  ?  Peter,  at  once,  responded  for  the 
rest  in  the  great  confession,  "Thou  art  the  Christ  [the 
Messiah],  the  Son  of  the  living  God"  (Mt.  16:16). 

The  significance  of  this  answer  of  Peter  as  dis- 
tinguished from  previous  confessions  of  our  Lord's 
Messiahship,  such  as  that  of  Andrew  to  Simon,  and 
of  Philip  to  Nathanael  (Jo.  1:41,45),  or  that  of 
Nathanael  himself  (Jo.  1:49),  or  that  of  the  disciples 
after  they  had  been  rescued  in  the  storm  (Mt.  14: 
33),  or  that  of  Peter  after  the  crisis  at  Capernaum 
(Jo.  6:68,  69),  was  that  these  confessions,  except  that 
of  Peter  at  Capernaum,  were  made  with  a  certain 
idea  of  the  Messiahship  in  the  speaker's  mind.  Even 
the  confession  at  Capernaum  was  uttered  immediately 
after  a  stupendous  miracle,  and  before  there  was  an  op- 
portunity of  realizing  the  full  extent  of  the  defection 
that  followed  the  discourse  on  the  Bread  of  Life,  or 
the  full  import  of  that  teaching.  But  now  several 
weeks  had  passed.  There  had  been  ample  opportu- 
nity for  meditation  upon  what  had  happened,  and  upon 
what  Jesus  had  said.     The  union  of  those  hereditary 


The  Great  Conjession  101 

enemies,  the  Pharisees  and  the  Sadducees,  against 
Jesus  had  been  demonstrated,  and  the  dullest  minds 
had  begun  to  see  what  that  involved.  The  old  mate- 
rial, political  conception  of  the  Messiah  had  been  shat- 
tered, if  not  destroyed.  In  view  of  these  circum- 
stances we  see  at  once  how  much  it  meant  that  Peter 
answered,  "Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living 
God."  The  previous  confessions  had  assumed  that 
Jesus  conformed,  or  would  conform,  to  the  speaker's 
idea  of  the  Messiah.  But  now  those  popular  notions 
of  the  Messiahship  had  been  largely  dispelled  in  the 
mind  of  Peter.  His  confession  therefore  meant,  not 
that  Jesus  satisfied  his  idea  of  the  Messiah,  but  that  he 
left  his  conception  of  the  Messiah  to  be  filled  out  and 
interpreted  by  the  personality  and  work  of  Jesus.  It 
meant  that  Jesus  was  so  manifestly  the  Christ,  that  he 
subordinated  his  judgment  of  what  the  Christ  should 
be  to  the  disclosures  that  Jesus  should  make  of  Him- 
self. It  is  related  of  several  famous  generals — of 
Napoleon,  of  Grant,  and  of  Lee — that,  in  disguise, 
without  any  indication  of  their  rank,  they  would  at 
night,  when  recognition  was  difficult,  engage  in  con- 
versation with  one  or  two  privates;  but  frequently 
there  was  something  in  their  tone  or  carriage  or  men- 
tal outlook  which  caused  the  private  to  feel  that  he 
was  not  talking  with  a  comrade,  and  often  the  dis- 
guise was  penetrated.  The  intuition  of  Peter  was 
like  that.  He  had  stopped  asking  whether  or  not 
Jesus  had  this  or  that  mark  of  being  the  Messiah;  in 
a  swift,  divine  insight  he  saw  that  He  was  the  Christ. 
Our  Lord's  recognition  of  Peter's  confession  (Mt. 
16:17-20)  has  been  variously  interpreted.  But  the 
obvious  meaning  is  doubtless  the  true  one.  The  "rock" 
was  Peter,  but  Peter  responsive  to  the  spirit  of  God, 
and  capable  of  this  superb  insight.  A  peculiar  pri- 
macy in  the  church  belongs  to  Peter,  as  being  the  first 
to  make  this  confession,  but  it  is  not  an  official  pri- 
macy, as  the  Roman  church  teaches.     It  gave  him,  as 


102  The  Great  Ministry 

we  see  in  the  history  of  the  Apostolic  church,  no  lord- 
ship over  his  brethren,  and  there  is  not  a  hint  that  he 
had  the  slightest  power  of  transmitting  whatever 
shadowy  primacy  he  may  have  had  to  a  successor. 
Peter  himself  throws  light  upon  the  meaning  of  Jesus 
when  he  speaks  of  believers  in  Jesus  as  "living  stones, 
.  built  up  [into]  a  spiritual  house"  (1  Pet.  2:5). 
The  award  of  Jesus  to  Peter  is  typical  of  a  universal 
Christian  experience.  Every  man  who  by  the  spirit 
of  God  comes  to  a  like  recognition  of  Jesus  is  also  a 
rock  to  whom  the  Lord's  great  promise  in  a  great 
measure  applies. 

But  Peter's  true  and  deep  insight  had  not  yet  satu- 
rated his  entire  nature  and  assimilated  it  to  itself. 
When  Jesus  spoke  plainly  of  the  issue  to  which  events 
were  tending — His  own  death  at  Jerusalem — Peter 
could  not  conceive  how  this  could  be  the  fortune  of 
the  Messiah.  His  conceptions  of  the  Messiahship 
were  not  yet  so  fully  subordinated  to  the  revelation 
of  Jesus  that  he  could  tolerate  such  a  thought.  The 
swift,  sharp  rebuke  of  Jesus  (Mt.  16:23)  indicates  that 
the  very  recoil  of  Peter's  mind  from  the  suggestion 
was  associated  in  the  thought  of  Jesus  with  His  own 
temptation  in  the  wilderness.  He  can  see  a  Satanic 
face  behind  the  natural  reluctance  of  Peter  to  con- 
template such  an  end  for  his  Lord.  Was  not  this 
the  very  temptation  which  He  had  overcome  during 
the  night  on  the  mountain  after  the  people  would 
have  made  Him  king? 

But  instantly  the  thought  of  Jesus  came  back  to 
rest  upon  the  underlying  principles  of  His  whole 
ministry.  Spiritual  values  are  supreme,  and  these 
can  only  be  attained,  for  oneself  or  for  others,  by 
the  experience  for  which  the  cross  stands.  But  the 
issue  of  the  cross  is  not  doubtful.  In  that  dark  hour 
our  Lord  had  a  vision  of  the  final  outcome,  "For  the 
Son  of  man  shall  come  in  the  glory  of  his  Father 
with  his  angels"   (Mt.  16:27). 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

Forces  that  Advance  and  Resist  the  Kingdom. 
Review  of  Chapters  XIV-XXV. 

The  study  in  chronological  order  of  the  events  de- 
scribed in  the  four  gospels  makes  the  successive  steps 
in  the  career  of  Jesus  entirely  reasonable  and  intel- 
ligible. We  see  that  He  worked  in  no  haphazard 
fashion,  but  according  to  a  program  that  had  been 
thoroughly  considered.  The  success  of  His  plan  was 
thwarted  by  conditions  that  are  inherent  in  human 
nature.  These  con- 
ditions, therefore, 
have  a  permanent 
significance  for  the 
student  of  the 
progress  of  the  re- 
ligion of  Jesus  in 
the  world.  In  re- 
viewing the  gospel 
history  of  Christ 
up  to  the  time  of 
Peter's  confession 
at  Caesarea  Philip- 
pi  (Mt.  16:16),  per- 
haps we  cannot  do 
better  than  to  set  sharply  before  our  minds  the  pro- 
gram of  Jesus,  and  the  conditions  which  thwarted 
its  development. 

Professor  J.  R.  Seeley  of  Cambridge,  England,  in 
that  remarkable  book,  Ecce  Homo,  does  not  make  a 
mistake  when  he  says  that  the  plan  of  Jesus  was  to 
arouse  in  the  hearts  of  men  an  intense  personal  devo- 
tion to  Himself,  which,  through  the  enthusiasm  for 
humanity  which  He  inspired,  would  make  His  fol- 
lowers the  agents  for  enlarging  that  brotherhood  of 

103 


From  a  photosraph. 

The  Gate  to  Csesarea  Philippi. 


104  The  Great  Ministry 

souls  moved  by  common  attachment  to  Himself  that 
He  called  "the  kingdom  of  God."  The  means  by 
which  this  program  was  to  be  realized  appeared  to  be 
ample.  First,  and  greatest  of  all,  there  was  the 
unparalleled  personality  of  Jesus  Himself  which  made 
a  profound  impression  upon  such  different  persons 
as  Nicodemus  and  the  woman  of  Sam.aria;  upon  a 
Roman  centurion  and  a  Canaanite  mother;  upon 
Matthew  and  Simon  Zelotes ;  upon  John  and  Thomas. 
This  impression  was  deepened  and  widened  by  His 
teachings,  which  were  marked  by  a  penetrating 
insight  into  the  human  soul,  and  a  positive  and  self- 
evidencing  disclosure  of  the  relation  of  God  to  men. 
And  these  teachings  were  accompanied  by  the  miracles 
of  helpfulness,  which,  on  the  one  hand,  relieved  the 
sick  and  the  bereaved,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
revealed  in  His  personality  a  S3'mpathy  with  human 
distresses  that  elicited  personal  affection.  For  a 
time  it  looked  as  if  these  forces  were  to  be  triumphant, 
and,  from  a  human  point  of  view,  we  may  say  that 
the  successive  preaching  tours  were  organized  and 
carried  out  with  that  expectation. 

What  then  were  the  forces  which  wrecked  this 
plan?  First  of  all  there  was  the  hostihty  of  the 
Pharisaic  party  in  Jerusalem  to  the  young  Teacher. 
Evil  men  in  great  places  become  singularly  acute  as 
to  forces  and  tendencies  that  threaten  their  positions. 
The  Pharisees  knew,  from  the  day  when  Jesus  over- 
threw the  tables  of  the  money  changers  in  the  temple, 
that  they  had  to  reckon  with  a  hostile  force.  Up  to 
the  time  we  are  considering,  Jesus  had  not  specifically 
attacked  the  Pharisees,  but  they  had  a  premonition 
of  what  was  coming;  and  they  determined  to  array 
all  the  forces  of  Judaism  and  of  the  Roman  power, 
so  far  as  they  could  influence  it,  for  His  overthrow 
and  destruction.  The  rising  fame  of  Jesus  soon 
became  such  a  menace  to  Jewish  officialdom  that  the 
Sadducees,  influenced  by  a  common  peril,  made  a 


Forces  that  Advance  and  Resist  the  Kingdom     105 

common  cause  with  the  Pharisees  against  Jesus.  It 
was  hke  the  Republican  and  Democratic  parties  in 
our  own  country  forgetting  their  hereditary  rivalries 
and  antagonisms,  and  making  common  cause  against 
a  leader  of  anarchism.  The  official  view,  the  view 
which  one  must  profess  in  order  to  be  in  good  stand- 
ing among  the  Pharisees  or  the  Sadducees,  was  that 
the  prophet  of  Nazareth  was  a  pestiferous  fellow  who 
must  be  gotten  rid  of. 

Another  force  that  resisted  the  program  of  Jesus 
was  the  devotion  of  the  multitude  to  material  ends. 
For  a  time  Jesus  was  exceedingly  popular.  Many 
in  the  crowds  that  followed  Him  began  to  see  how 
such  influence  and  miraculous  power  could  be  uti- 
lized to  secure  independence  of  Rome,  while  others, 
after  the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand,  evidently  be- 
lieved that  in  following  and  applauding  Jesus  they 
were  embracing  an  excellent  opportunity  to  get  bread 
without  working  for  it.  The  discourse  of  Jesus  at 
Capernaum  disabused  the  minds  of  both  the  political 
and  the  bread  followers;  and  He  was  left  alone  with 
a  handful  of  attached  friends. 

There  is  a  resemblance  between  the  antagonism  of 
the  Pharisees  and  that  of  the  multitude  which  should 
not  pass  unnoticed.  Both  classes  opposed  Jesus 
because  they  could  not  use  Him.  Any  type  of 
religion  can  escape  the  perils  that  beset  the  program 
of  Jesus  by  submitting  to  be  used  for  the  selfish  pur- 
poses of  men. 

But  behind  both  of  these  antagonisms  to  Jesus  was 
that  evil  in  the  human  heart  which  blinds  it  to  the 
appreciation  of  spiritual  values.  In  this  the  officials 
of  Jerusalem  and  the  multitudes  in  Galilee  are  abso- 
lutely at  one.  Neither  can  see,  nor  make  a  whole- 
hearted response  to  a  disclosure  of  spiritual  nobility 
and  worth.  No  type  of  spiritual  religion  can  make 
its  way  among  men  who  lack  appreciation  of  the 
morally  heroic,  and  of  great  spiritual  ideals.     It  is 


106  The  Great  Ministry 

for  this  reason  that  our  public  schools,  our  Sunday 
schools  and  every  institution  for  public  enlightenment 
and  elevation  should  constantly  uphold  the  noblest 
examples  of  moral  heroism  and  of  self-sacrificing  devo- 
tion to  the  things  of  the  spirit.  The  point  of  Ste- 
phen's sermon  (Acts  7:1-53)  is  that  Judaism  had  lost 
the  power  of  appreciating  moral  values.  A  people 
that  for  centuries  could  not  recognize  its  own  best 
men,  but  killed  its  prophets,  of  course  would  put 
Jesus  Christ  to  death  on  the  cross  (Acts  7:52,  53). 

We  may  say,  reverently,  that  our  Lord  felt  pro- 
foundly the  impotence  of  the  great  forces  in  His 
hand  to  win  men  to  Himself,  and  set  up  the  kingdom 
of  God  in  the  earth.  His  language  to  Simon  Peter, 
after  the  great  confession,  shows  that,  speaking  after 
the  manner  of  men,  He  recognized  that  He  must  add 
to  the  resources  of  the  kingdom  another  power. 
"From  that  time  began  Jesus  to  show  unto  his  dis- 
ciples, that  he  must  go  unto  Jerusalem,  and  suffer 
many  things  of  the  elders  and  chief  priests  and  scribes, 
and  be  killed,  and  the  third  day  be  raised  up"  (Mt. 
16:21). 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

The  Divine  Assurance. 

Mk.  9:2-32. 

Most  of  the  miracles  recorded  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment were  wrought  by  our  Lord  or  by  His  disciples. 
A  few,  like  the  witness  at  the  baptism  of  Jesus  and 
the  transfiguration,  to  all  appearance,  were  wrought 
independently  of  the  agency  of  any  one  upon  the 
earth,  and  Jesus  accepted  them  as  evidences  that  He 
was  walking  in  the  way  the  Father  had  appointed, 
fulfilling  the  divine  plan. 

As  we  have  seen  repeatedly  in  the  course  of  these 


Mount  Hermon. 

Studies,  Jesus  always  refused  to  work  a  miracle  for 
His  own  personal  advantage.  He  fixed  that  prin- 
ciple in  His  attitude  toward  the  first  temptation. 
He  would  not  turn  the  stones  into  bread  to  save 
Himself  from  starving,  but,  a  few  days  later.  He 
turned  the  water  into  wine  to  save  His  host  from  a 
social  embarrassment.  Still,  though  He  would  not 
use  His  divine  power  for  His  own  comfort.  He  was 
thoroughly  responsive  to  a  miraculous  assurance 
received  from  the  Father. 

107 


108  The  Great  Ministry 

If  this  fact  seems  to  make  it  more  difficult  to  con- 
struct a  theory  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  we  must  not 
suffer  the  circumstance  that  we  are  puzzled  to  set 
forth  a  complete  philosophy  of  the  divine  life  under 
human  conditions  to  obscure  our  perception  of  the 
truth  that  the  life  of  Jesus  was  lived  throughout 
under  conditions  that  are  absolutely  common  to 
humanity.  He  did  not  use  His  divine  power  to 
meet  the  exigencies  or  to  deliver  Himself  from  the 
distresses  of  human  experience. 

When  the  sons  of  millionaires  boast,  as  some  of 
them  have  done,  that  they  have  known  what  it  is 
to  work  for  a  dollar  or  a  dollar  and  a  half  a  day,  and 
then  assume  that  they  understand  the  lot  of  wage- 
earners,  sensible  persons  simply  smile,  and  ask 
whether  or  not  these  young  men  have  ever  known 
what  it  is  to  be  wholly  dependent  on  their  own  exer- 
tions, without  any  prospect  of  aid,  in  sickness  and 
trouble,  from  their  rich  fathers.  To  have  done  so 
would  be  the  only  thing  that  would  give  the  slightest 
force  to  their  vaunting.  Jesus  did  not  live  the  life 
of  the  Son  of  God  in  the  world  with  any  reliance 
upon  aid  that  did  not  come  to  Him  as  a  man  work- 
ing under  human  conditions.  Assurances  and  com- 
fort from  God  may  be  expected  by  us  all. 

From  this  point  of  view  we  can  appreciate  the 
significance  of  the  transfiguration.  It  was  not  an 
experience  wholly  for  the  sake  of  the  disciples,  al- 
though that  element  was  in  it.  It  was  primarily 
God's  assurance  and  comfort  for  His  Son.  The 
main  events  which  preceded  it  make  this  very  clear. 
After  the  confession  at  Csesarea  Philippi,  and  our 
Lord's  rebuke  of  Peter,  the  relation  of  Jesus  to  the 
Twelve  must  have  been  tremulous  with  difficulty. 
Peter's  superb  insight,  after  all,  had  only  been  partial. 
He  had  not  yet  been  emancipated  from  the  tendency 
to  think  of  the  Messiah  in  the  terms  of  his  own  pre- 
conceptions.    It  had  been  incredible  to  him  that  the 


The  Divine  Assurance  109 

Messiah  should  be  put  to  death.  For  six  days  the 
relationship  of  Jesus  and  the  Twelve  must  have  been 
exceedingly  delicate  on  both  sides.  They  believed 
in  Him,  and  yet — -there  was  always  a  recurrence  in 
their  minds  of  those  ominous  words  "and  yet.  "  The 
unequivocal  declaration  of  the  Master  as  to  His  death 
was  too  preposterous,  too  horrible,  to  find  ready 
admittance  to  their  souls.  They  simply  could  not 
harmonize  it  with  their  other  ideas.  If  they  believed 
it,  they  believed  it  as  men  believe  a  truth  to  which 
their  minds  are  compelled  by  some  external  evidence, 
but  which  is  not  assimilated  by  the  life,  because  the 
spirit  makes  no  vital,  fructif^dng  response  to  it.  The 
first  effect  of  the  disclosure  at  Caesarea  Philippi  must 
have  been  simply  stunning  and  bewildering.  As  we 
say  in  familiar  speech,  they  "could  not  bring  their 
minds  to  it. " 

This  was  the  situation  when  Jesus  took  Peter  and 
James  and  John  on  a  mountain  walk.  It  was  a 
heavy-hearted  group.  As  they  paused  for  prayer, 
suddenly  the  form  of  Jesus  was  transformed;  His 
very  garments  became  radiant.  The  disciples  saw 
that  two,  whom  they  recognized  as  Moses  and  Elijah, 
talked  with  the  Master;  they  even  caught  the  drift 
of  the  conversation,  and,  more  than  all,  they  heard 
the  voice  from  heaven.  Had  the  soul  of  Jesus  been 
troubled  at  the  episode  of  six  days  before?  Had  He 
been  tempted  to  re-read  the  divine  plan  to  discern 
another  interpretation?  Had  He  been  cast  down  in 
heart  at  the  repugnance  of  the  disciples,  when  they 
knew  the  whole  truth  about  His  earthly  career?  We 
do  not  know.  Still,  such  suggestions  may  give  us  a 
true  hint  as  to  His  mood.  And  now  there  came,  in  a 
moment,  this  revelation  from  the  Father.  We  can 
imagine  something  of  what  this  experience  meant  to 
our  Lord,  and  to  His  disciples  who  shared  it.  It  was 
the  overwhelming  witness  and  confirmation  of  Jesus 
as  the  suffering  Messiah.     Moses  and  Elijah,  in  the 


110  The  Great  Ministry 

invisible  world,  had  seen  the  astounding  fact.  God 
Himself  bore  witness  to  it. 

From  the  time  of  this  experience  the  attitude  of 
Jesus  toward  His  work,  and  the  attitude  of  the  dis- 
ciples toward  Him,  changed.  He  no  longer  courted 
solitude  and  secrecy.  He  began  to  bear  His  witness 
openly,  and  in  the  chief  centers  of  the  national  life, 
as  at  the  beginning  of  His  ministry.  He  moved  for- 
ward with  the  poise  and  sureness  that  mark  one  who 
sees  his  path  with  entire  clarity.  Henceforth  there 
are  no  more  misunderstandings  in  the  minds  of  the 
disciples  as  to  the  issue  of  their  Master's  earthly  life. 
It  would  be  far  too  much  to  say  that  they  are  recon- 
ciled to  it,  but  they  do  not  cast  the  thought  out  of 
their  minds.  It  begins  to  form  some  affinities  with 
the  deeper  currents  of  their  lives. 

The  experience  of  the  transfiguration  opens  some 
difficult  and  delicate  questions  as  to  the  possible  rela- 
tions of  departed  spirits  to  the  activities  of  the  earth. 
But  the  fact  should  not  be  overlooked  that  this  open- 
ing of  the  invisible  was  in  connection  with  the  tran- 
scendent fact  of  human  history — the  cross  of  Christ 
— and  even  then,  the  communication  was  transient. 
The  disciples  were  not  encouraged,  or  even  permitted, 
to  remain  in  this  atmosphere.  The  disclosure  was 
not  for  curiosity  or  for  enjoyment  but  for  assurance. 
It  had  done  its  work  when  it  had  imparted  the  mood 
of  comfort  and  conviction,  and  this  mood  was  for 
service.  The  vast  suffering  world  of  mankind  is 
typified  in  the  demoniac  child  at  the  foot  of  the 
mountain.  The  world-famous  picture  of  "The  Trans- 
figuration" is  not  only  great  as  a  work  of  art,  it  is 
great  in  its  insight  that  over  against  the  vision  of  the 
invisible,  with  its  knowledge  and  peace  and  sympathy, 
is  the  suffering  world,  and  that  the  purpose  of  the 
experiences  of  mounts  of  transfiguration  is  equipment 
for  the  service  of  men  to  whom  no  such  moments 
have  come. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 
The  Motives  to   Forgiveness. 
Mt.  17:24—18:35. 

It  is  singular  how  profoundly  men  may  be  moved 
by  spiritual  truths,  and  yet  large  sections  of  their 
natures  remain  uninfluenced.  Doubtless  the  disciples 
had  sympathized  with  the  confession  of  Peter  at 
Caesarea  Philippi.  They  had  begun  to  apprehend 
more  truly  than  ever  before  the  nature  and  mission  of 
their  Master.  As  a  body — for  the  case  of  Judas 
should  not  divert  our  attention  too  much — they 
meant  to  be  loyal  to  Him,  to  live  the  kind  of  life  and 
to  do  the  work  to  which  He  called  them.  But  how 
little  as  yet  they  knew  what  that  life  and  that  service 
were!  How  far  as  yet  they  were  from  appreciating 
that  radical  transformation  of  the  soul  which  Jesus 
demanded! 

The  revelation  of  the  range  of  the  Christian  life 
came  about  in  a  natural  way.  After  the  experience 
of  the  transfiguration  Jesus  no  longer  shunned  publi- 
city. Almost  immedi- 
ately He  seems  to 
have  returned  to  Ca- 
pernaum—the scene 
of  His  early  mi-nistry, 
where  He  was  exceed- 
ingly well  known. 
The  question  that 
some  official  put  to 
Peter  as  to  the  acknowledgment  on  the  part  of  Jesus 
of  the  obligation  to  pay  the  annual  temple  tax — a 
quer}'-  that,  in  all  likelihood,  was  raised  to  involve 
Jesus  in  some  controversy  with  the  ecclesiastics- 
had  a  curious  result.  The  circumstance  that  Peter 
was  the  one  to  be  approached  indicated  to  the  rest 

111 


Jewish  Shekel. 


112  The  Great  MinisUy 

of  the  group  that,  in  public  opinion,  he  had  come  to 
be  looked  upon  as,  next  to  Jesus,  the  leader  of  the 
company.  An  allusion  in  Mark's  gospel  shows  that 
the  question  of  precedence  and  leadership  had  al- 
ready disturbed  them  not  a  little.  When,  therefore, 
this  question  of  the  officer  emphasized  the  prominence 
of  Peter,  it  became  the  occasion  of  some  heart-burn- 
ing. They  showed  it  by  asking  Jesus  as  to  who  was 
greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Some  of  them, 
perhaps,  hoped  for  an  answer  that  would  put  Peter 
down.  Jesus  embraced  the  opportunity  to  inculcate 
some  of  His  distinct  ideas  of  the  true  relations  of  men 
to  each  other. 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  how  this  instruction  which 
so  emphasizes  the  worth  of  modest,  unselfish  human 
service  insensibly  passes  into  a  discussion  as  to  the 
necessity  of  cultivating  the  spirit  of  forgiveness.  The 
reason  is  that  the  unforgiving  temper  is  so  closely 
associated  with  the  hardness  and  self-concern  and 
want  of  sympathy  that  lead  men  to  push  their  ambi- 
tions without  regard  for  others.  The  man  who  for- 
gives others,  in  the  deep  sense  of  Jesus,  is  one  who 
by  necessity  is  free  from  exaggeration  of  his  own 
importance.  He  sees  things  in  another  perspective. 
One  must  be  humble  before  he  can  forgive.  To  a 
proud,  self-conscious  man  real  forgiveness  is  almost 
impossible. 

Looking  at  this  teaching  of  Jesus  in  a  broad  way 
we  may  say  that  He  affirms  that  there  are  three  mo- 
tives, considerations  or  qualities  of  spirit  which  result 
in  the  forgiving  disposition. 

The  first  is  the  childlike  temper.  What  is  the 
precise  characteristic  of  childhood  that  Jesus  com- 
mends? The  circumstance  that  He  said  that  the 
disciple  must  "humble  himself"  and  become  like  the 
child,  does  not  imply  that  humility  is  the  distinguish- 
ing trait,  even  of  very  little  children.  They  can  be 
as  pushing,  domineering  and  selfish  as  adults.      That 


The  Motives  to  Forgiveness  113 

is  not  the  point.  It  is  something  quite  different. 
The  characteristic  of  childhood  is  its  sense  of  depend- 
ence. Childhood  may  be  selfish,  but  it  is  not  self- 
sufficient.  Humble  yourself  and  realize  your  de- 
pendence upon  God,  as  a  helpless  child  realizes  its 
dependence  on  its  father  and  mother.  That  is  the 
condition  of  greatness  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
That  spirit  strikes  at  the  root  of  pride  and  selfish 
ambition;  it  sweetens  the  soul  and  makes  it  respon- 
sive to  the  call  for  sympathy  and  forgiveness. 

Again  our  Lord  points  out  that  this  spirit  will 
flow  from  a  just  perception  of  values.  The  greatest 
quality  in  the  world  is  love,  but  the  greatest  thing  in 
the  world  is  human  personality.  When  one  has  done 
us  wrong  we  are  very  apt  to  look  at  the  whole  inci- 
dent in  a  false  perspective.  We  think  almost  wholly 
of  the  loss,  trouble  or  mortification  the  offender  has 
brought  us.  Those  are  the  great  things  in  our  eyes; 
indeed,  it  is  rather  difficult  to  think  of  anything  else. 
Jesus  says.  Do  not  think  of  those  things,  think  of  the 
offender,  and  make  it  your  first  concern  to  "gain 
him";  to  bring  him  to  repentance  and  a  better  mind. 
Do  not  leave  any  means  untried  to  achieve  that 
supreme  end.  See  him  first,  alone;  then,  if  he  is 
obdurate,  with  a  mutual  friend,  and  only  as  a  last 
resort,  try  the  pressure  of  public  opinion.  We  are 
wont  to  imagine,  when  one  has  wronged  us,  that  we 
go  a  long  way  toward  a  high  type  of  Christian  virtue 
when  we  do  not  take  active  steps  against  the  offender, 
but  simply  nurse  the  grudge.  Jesus  holds  that  when 
one  wrongs  us  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  ignore  it,  or 
to  say  nothing  about  it.  The  wrong  he  has  done 
puts  us  under  the  obligation  of  winning  him  back  to 
righteous  ways.  And  in  "gaining  our  brother"  we 
win  the  most  precious  thing  in  the  world. 

Still  further.  Peter's  insistence  that  there  must 
be  some  limit  to  the  duty  of  forgiveness  leads  Jesus, 
in  the  parable  of  the  unmerciful  servant,  to  point  out 


114  The  Great  Ministry 

that  we  are  to  reflect  in  our  relation  to  others  the 
attitude  of  God  toward  ourselves.  The  remission  of 
the  great  debt  imposed  upon  the  debtor  the  duty  of 
deahng  kindly  with  his  debtor.  The  conduct  of  the 
unmerciful  servant  arouses  the  just  indignation  of 
every  true  man.  And  yet,  when  we  apply  the  para- 
ble to  ourselves  we  can  easily  evade  the  point.  Still, 
the  moment  we  come  to  a  just  sense  of  what  God  has 
done  for  us,  how  contemptible  and  despicable  appear 
our  hardnesses,  our  resentments  and  our  grudges 
against  our  "fellow  servants." 

According  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus  the  forgiving 
spirit  is  the  outcome  of  our  sense  of  dependence  upon 
God,  of  our  appreciation  of  the  worth  of  men,  and 
of  our  gratitude  for  the  divine  forgiveness. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Unresponsiveness  to  Truth. 
Jo.  chs.  7,  s. 

Pascal  remarks  in  his  penetrating  way:  "What  say 
the  prophets  of  Jesus  Christ?  That  He  shall  be 
manifestly  God?  No,  but  that  He  is  the  true  God 
veiled;  that  He  shall  be  unrecognized;  that  men  shall 
not  think  that  this  is  He;  that  He  shall  be  a  stone  of 
stumbling  and  a  rock  of  offense. "  Biblical  students 
too  often  have  forgotten  this.  They  have  not  seen 
with  sufficient  clearness  that  the  fact  that  the  con- 
temporaries of  Je- 
sus did  not  recog- 
nize Him  as  the 
Messiah,  instead  of 
disproving  the  fore- 
casts of  the  proph- 
ets, is  the  very 
thing  which  the 
prophets  antici- 
pated. 

A  salient  instance 
of  the  blindness  of 
His  countrymen  to 
the  real  nature  and 
character  of  Jesus 
is  afforded  by  the  treatment  He  received  during  the 
feast  of  tabernacles.  This  occasion  bore  some  resem- 
blance to  the  American  Thanksgiving,  in  that  it  was 
a  harvest  feast;  but  it  was  continued  through  more 
than  a  week,  and  every  male  was  expected  to  attend 
it  at  Jerusalem.  Jesus  was  in  or  near  Capernaum 
when  the  time  of  this  feast  drew  near.  His  own 
brothers  urged  Him  to  improve  the  occasion,  and  go 
to  the  capital,  and  then,  at  the  height  of  the  national 

115 


A  Street  in  Jerusalem. 


116  The  Great  Aliin'siry 

holiday,  assert  His  Messianic  claims.  Though  His 
brothers  did  not  at  this  time  believe  that  He  was  the 
Messiah,  they  had  seen  too  many  evidences  of  His 
miraculous  power  to  think  that  He  incurred  any 
special  danger  in  adopting  their  advice,  and  then, 
if  perchance  He  succeeded  in  convincing  the  authori- 
ties at  Jerusalem  as  to  the  truth  of  His  claims,  they 
would  see  their  way  clear  to  accepting  Him  also. 
Jesus  declined  this  invitation  of  His  brothers  to  go 
to  Jerusalem  with  them.  At  the  same  time  He  told 
them  that  there  was  no  good  reason  wh}'-  they  should 
not  go.  Accordingly  they  went  on  without  Him. 
Shortly  after  Jesus  followed  them  alone,  "not  pub- 
licly, but  as  it  were  in  secret.  "  The  first  His  friends 
knew  of  His  presence  in  the  city  was  when  they 
found  Him  teaching  in  the  temple. 

The  prevailing  impression  that  John's  summary  of 
Jesus'  teaching  on  this  occasion  and  his  account  of 
the  attitude  of  the  prominent  men  in  Jerusalem  makes 
upon  the  reader  is  that  Jesus  and  His  contemporaries 
moved  in  entirely  different  realms.  They  hardly 
understood  Him  more  than  a  fish  can  understand 
the  life  of  a  bird;  and  yet  such  illustrations  have  a 
fatal  defect,  for  their  misunderstanding,  their  opacity 
to  truth  and  light,  were  not  necessary  and  inevitable. 
The}'  had  capacities  and  faculties,  powers  of  insight 
and  responsiveness  that,  if  exercised,  would  have 
made  them  at  home  in  the  realm  in  which  our  Lord 
moved.  Could  they  have  exercised  these  powers? 
Could  they  have  understood  Jesus  and  responded  to 
Him  if  they  had  chosen  to  do  so?  Such  ques- 
tions, though  natural  and  inevitable,  lead  us  at  once 
to  some  of  the  most  difficult  problems  in  philosophy 
and  theology.  Still,  this  much  is  perfectly  clear, 
habits  of  thought,  readiness  to  act  from  lower  motives, 
the  practice  of  a  hard,  formal,  censorious  type  of 
reHgion  had  actually  closed  their  natures  to  every 
spiritual    approach    and    appeal.     They    realized    in 


Unresponsiveness  to  TniiJi  117 

themselves  that  terrific  penalty  of  worldhness,  for- 
mahsm  and  self-conceit,  that  having  eyes  they  saw- 
not,  and  having  ears  they  heard  not.  The  faculty 
was  there,  but  it  did  not  function.  Carlyle  has  some- 
where suggested  that  the  power  of  recognizing  moral 
worth,  the  faculty  of  appreciating  spiritual  values 
is  the  absolutely  indispensable  foundation  of  any 
religion  worth  talking  about.  "The  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  hke  unto  a  man  that  is  a  merchant  seek- 
ing goodly  pearls;  and  having  found  one  pearl  of 
great  price,  he  went  and  sold  all  that  he  had,  and 
bought  it."  But  the  dealer  in  jewels  must  knoAv  a 
good  pearl  when  he  sees  it,  otherwise  his  purchase 
will  be  apt  to  land  him  in  bankruptcy.  The  great 
difficulty  with  the  contemporaries  of  Jesus  was  that 
they  were  unresponsive  to  spiritual  values. 

There  was  only  one  man  in  that  throng  at  the 
feast  who  acquitted  himself  with  credit,  and  that  was 
Nicodemus.  He  had  the  courage  to  ask  a  question 
which  put  him  unmistakably  on  the  side  of  Jesus. 
The  conversation  he  had  with  Jesus  months  before 
has  borne  fruit;  he  has  become  a  disciple,  and  his 
mind  has  opened  to  the  truths  that  at  first  seemed 
so  puzzling. 

Just  in  proportion  as  these  men  failed  to  respond 
to  Jesus,  His  own  assertion  of  His  nature  and  claims 
became  positive  and  unequivocal.  Ingenious  inter- 
pretations of  these  chapters  may  possibly  succeed  in 
making  Jesus'  assertion  of  His  deity  shadowy,  but 
it  was  not  shadowy  to  those  who  heard  Him  on  the 
last  da}^  of  the  feast.  Every  element  of  vagueness 
was  eliminated  from  their  thought.  They  under- 
stood perfectly  what  He  claimed  for  Himself.  They 
charged  Him  with  blasphemy  and  were  eager  to  stone 
Him  for  the  palpable  sacrilege  of  asserting  that  He 
existed  before  Abraham. 

It  is  also  important  to  notice  how  through  all  this 
conflict  Jesus  keeps  clear  and  bright  His  conscious- 


118  The  Great  Ministry 

ness  of  His  perfect  relationship  with  His  Father, 
In  some  aspects  this  fact  is  a  more  impressive  indica- 
tion of  His  deity  than  His  own  assertion  of  it.  At 
least  we  may  say  that  it  validates  the  assertion. 
How  wonderful  it  is  when  w^e  come  to  think  of  it! 
Many  of  our  prayers  and  hymns  would  be  incongru- 
ous on  the  lips  of  Jesus.  He  could  not  sing  "Nearer, 
my  God,  to  Thee."  He  had  no  aspiration  to  know 
God  better  than  He  knew  Him.  or  to  enter  into  a 
closer  fellowship  than  that  which  He  enjoyed.  And 
these  teachings  flow  like  a  stream  from  a  deep  foun- 
tain. They  are  like  a  wife's  speech  of  her  husband, 
with  whose  heart  ".nd  life  her  own  soul  is  in  perfect 
accord. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

Fellowship  and  Service. 

Lu.  9:51—10:42. 

The  attempt  to  stone  Jesus  at  the  feast  of  taber- 
nacles led  Him  to  withdraw  from  Jerusalem  and 
return  to  Galilee.  There  He  found  that  the  hostility 
which  had  been  aroused  against  Him  was  almost  as 
intense  as  that  which  He  had  experienced  at  Jeru- 
salem. The  chronological  arrangement  of  the  events 
of  this  period  makes  it  clear  that  Jesus  must  almost 
have  regarded  Himself  as  a  hunted  one.  There  was 
no  place  open  to  Him.  Jerusalem  had  rejected  Him 
and  sought  His  life,  and  Galilee,  the  most  promising 
scene  of  His  early  ministry,  had  become  hardly  less 
hostile.  At  this  juncture  it  looks  as  if  Jesus  had 
determined  to  go  back  to  Jerusalem,  bear  His  witness 
there  again,  and  meet  the  result  (Lu.  9:51).  The 
natural  route  was  through  Samaria,  but  when  His 
friends  attempted  to  secure  for  Him  a  convenient 
stopping  place  in  that  territory,  they  were  met  with 
a  blunt  refusal.  This  so  angered  James  and  John 
that  they  would  like  to  have  re-enacted  the  role  of 
Elijah,  and  consumed  the  inhospitable  Samaritans 
by  fire  from  heaven.  It  is  worth  noting  that  one 
of  those  who  would  commit  this  grave  offense  against 
the  law  of  love,  afterwards  became  the  apostle  of 
love.  He  also  had  a  share  in  the  other  two  outstand- 
ing infractions  of  love  recorded  in  the  gospels  (Mk. 
10:35;  Lu.  9:49). 

This  rejection  by  the  Samaritans  led  Jesus  to  turn 
aside  for  a  ministry  of  a  few  weeks  in  Perea — 
the  region  to  the  east  of  the  Jordan,  in  Avhich  the 
Gentile  admixture  had  somewhat  weakened  the 
virulence  of  Hebrew  prejudice.  The  compan\^  around 
Jesus  at  this  time  was  sufficiently  numerous  to  enable 

119 


120  The  Great  Ministry 

Him  to  organize  a  band  of  seventy,  which  He  sent 
out  with  instructions  similar  to  those  He  had  pre- 
viously given  the  Twelve,  except  that  He  did  not 
forbid  them  to  preach  to  the  Gentiles. 

The  precise  sequence  of  events  during  this  period, 
concerning  which  there  are  many  differences  among 
New  Testament  scholars,  is  of  slight  importance  com- 
pared with  the  insight  into  Jesus'  attitude  and  teach- 
ing which  the  incidents  Luke  has  grouped  about  this 
epoch  reveal. 

For  example,  a  study  of  these  episodes  puts  into 
a  bright  light  the  transcendent  importance  of  per- 
sonal relationship  to  Jesus  Himself.  It  has  often 
been  said  that  this  is  the  peculiar  doctrine  of  the 
fourth  gospel,  but  is  it  not  also  the  clue  that  explains 
many  important  features  of  the  other  three? 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  imagine  a  more  insistent 
emphasis  upon  this  truth  than  we  have  in  the  story 
of  the  three  inquirers  (Lu.  9:57-62).  The  moral  con- 
viction that  one  should  devote  himself  to  the  service 
of  Jesus  so  stands  in  a  class  by  itself,  that  it  is  like  a 
royal  invitation  which  supersedes  all  other  engage- 
ments. All  questions  of  wealth,  of  family  ties  and 
of  friendship  are  subordinate  to  it.  The  call  to 
follow  the  soul's  Master  transcends  every  other  con- 
sideration  (Prov.  8:36). 

The  way  Jesus  greeted  the  report  of  the  Seventy 
on  their  return  from  their  evangelistic  tour  illustrates 
the  same  truth.  They  were  elated,  and  exulted: 
"Lord,  even  the  demons  are  subject  unto  us  in  thy 
name. "  But  He  pointed  out  that  the  ultimate 
reason  for  rejoicing  was  not  what  they  could  do  in 
His  name,  but  that,  through  personal  relationship  to 
Him  and  enlistment  in  His  service,  their  names  were 
written  in  heaven  (Lu.  10:17-20). 

The  episode  at  the  home  of  Martha  and  Mary 
illuminates  the  same  truth.  The  assiduous  care  of 
Martha  for  the  physical  comfort  of  the  Guest  was 


FclloiL'ship  and  Service 


121 


commendable,  but  sympathetic  responsiveness  to 
His  word  and  spirit  betokened  even  a  deeper  appreci- 
ation of  Him  (Lu.  10:38-42).  And  from  this  appre- 
ciation was  to  come  that  superb  act  of  loving  devo- 
tion which  has  perfumed  the  world  (Jo.  12:3).  A 
missionary  in  the  far  west,  from  the  land  of  the  cactus 
and  the  sagebrush,  recently  said,  "Men  say  that  we 
need  railroads  and  cities,  with  warehouses  and  shops 
and  factories  and  residences;  we  need  churches  and 
schools  and  colleges;  we  need  happy  homes  and  strong 
men  and  gracious  women  and  lovely  children,  and 
art  and  music.  Yes,  we  need  these  things  in  Arizona 
and  New  Mexico,  but  after  all,  there  is  only  one 
thing  we  need,  and  that  is  water.     Give  us  water  and 


From  a  photograph. 


The  Road  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho. 


we  shall  have  plenteous  harvests  and  railroads  and 
cities,  schools  and  churches,  and  Christian  homes 
and  music.  Water  is  what  we  need,  and  we  shall 
have  everything  else,  if  we  have  water."  That  is 
Jesus'  conception  of  His  own  relationship  to  human 
life.  Fellowship  with  Himself  is  the  one  thing  need- 
ful, and  out  of  that  fellowship  comes  the  inspiration 
to  all  strong  and  beautiful  human  service.  And  it 
is  because  Jesus  holds  the  relationship  to  God  that 
is  expressed  in  the  prayer  which  Luke  assigns  to  this 
period  (Lu.  10:21-23)  that  He  sustains  this  relation- 
ship to  human  life. 


122  The  Great  Ministry 

Let  us  remember  that  the  parable  of  the  good 
Samaritan  stands  in  immediate  association  with  the 
unfolding  of  this  high  spiritual  truth.  It  is  em- 
bedded in  the  exposition  as  a  Hy  in  amber.  Do  men 
say,  The  religion  of  the  good  Samaritan  is  all  the 
religion  I  want?  But  whence  comes  that  religion 
except  from  fellowship  with  Christ?  After  the  San 
Francisco  earthquake  the  actors  gave  "benefits"  for 
the  sufferers,  and  men  said,  "What  a  fine,  noble 
thing  to  do!"  And  it  was.  But  the  remark  of  an 
eminent  minister  on  the  Pacific  coast  was  in  point. 
"It  took  an  earthquake  to  inspire  the  actors  to  do 
that,  but  that  is  the  sort  of  thing  that  Christian 
churches  are  doing  all  the  time,  under  the  impulse  of 
Christian  love,  when  there  is  no  dramatic  appeal, 
and  no  special  emergency  but  the  perpetual  one  of 
commonplace  poverty  and  suffering." 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

Our  Lord's  Witness  to  Himself. 

Jo.  chs.  9,  10. 

The  plain  implication  of  the  chronological  hints 
given  by  the  EvangeHsts  is  that  Jerusalem — the  his- 
toric capital  of  Judaism,  and  the  center  of  its  rehgious 
life  and  "worship — possessed  an  insuperable  attraction 
for  Jesus.  He  seems  to  have  withdrawn  from  it  re- 
peatedly, when  an  outbreak  against  Him  became  too 
threatening;  but,  in  a  short  space,  He  returned  to 
take  up  His  ministry  there  afresh.  He  seems  to  have 
felt  that  nothing  He  could  accomplish  in  the  provin- 
cial cities  or  in  the  outlying  country  could  make  up 
for  the  loss  of  His  witness  in  Jerusalem.  The  city 
of  David  must  accept  or  reject  him.  If  He  was  to 
be  a  sacrifice,  it  must  be  upon  the  historic  altar  of 
Jehovah. 

Accordingly,  about  two  months  after  the  feast  of 
tabernacles,  we  find  Jesus  again  in  Jerusalem,  and  by 
an  act  of  mercy  upon  a  man  born  blind  He  was  brought 
into  sharp  antagonism  with  the  religious  leaders  (Jo. 
ch.  9).  There  were  two  features  of  this  miracle  which 
particularly  exasperated  His  enemies.  One  w^as  that 
there  was  no  possibility  of  denying  the  reality  of  the 
miracle.  This  is  the  one  miracle  in  the  gospel  narra- 
tive which  was  subjected  to  a  judicial  inquiry.  The 
judges  were  most  unfriendly,  but  the  evidence  of  all 
the  witnesses  left  no  room  for  doubt  as  to  the  reality 
of  the  miracle.  The  only  explanation  that  these  keen 
and  partisan  critics  of  what  had  taken  place  could 
offer  was  that  Jesus  had  a  demon  (Jo.  10:20,  21). 

The  other  feature  of  this  incident  which  enraged 
the  Pharisees  was  that  this  notable  cure  was  wrought 
on  the  Sabbath.  The  Sabbath  question,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  the  source  of  some  of  the  deepest  and  bitter- 

123 


124 


The  Great  Ministry 


est  antagonisms  on  the  part  of  the  contemporaries  of 
our  Lord  against  Him.  They  reahzed  that  the  keep- 
ing of  the  Sabbath  was  the  pivotal  factor  in  the  in- 
tegrity and  perpetuity  of  Judaism.  And  more  than 
this,  after  the  manner  of  those  whose  faith  is  losing 

its  spiritual  quality, 
they  held  the  more 
tenaciously  to  its 
formal  and  ceremo- 
nial features.  In- 
deed the  narrative 
shows  that  they 
v/ere  willing  to  put 
aside  incontroverti- 
ble evidence,  be- 
cause it  conflicted 
with  their  narrow 
construction    of     a 

The  Pool  of  Siloam.  .    ■, 

ceremonial  require- 
ment. Their  declaration,  "This  man  is  not  from  God, 
because  he  keepeth  not  the  sabbath"  (Jo. 9: 16),  is  a 
classic  illustration  of  the  power  of  a  formal  religion 
to  blind  the  eyes  to  spiritual  realities. 

The  discourses  of  Jesus  reported  in  the  tenth  chap- 
ter are  suggested  by  the  fact  that  these  men,  through 
their  hard,  formal  and  unsympathetic  attitude  toward 
spiritual  things,  had  lost  the  power  of  appreciating 
moral  values.  They  were  blind  while  thinking  that 
they  could  see  (Jo.  9:39-41);  the}^  did  not  hear  and 
respond  to  the  voice  of  the  Good  Shepherd  (Jo.  10: 
14).  It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  we  gain  a  just 
insight  as  to  our  Lord's  conception  of  the  gravest  re- 
sult of  sin.  It  is  that  a  man  may  lose  the  sense  of 
spiritual  values;  the  power  of  moral  discrimination. 
In  His  own  graphic  description,  the  faculties 
possessed  by  the  soul  may  cease  to  function,  having 
e3^es  they  may  not  see,  and  having  ears  they  may 
not  hear. 


Oitr  Lord's  Witness  to  Himself  125 

The  story  of  the  heahng  of  the  man  born  bUnd,  and 
of  the  subsequent  judicial  inquiry,  is  told  with  a  skill 
which  places  the  ninth  chapter  of  John's  gospel  among 
the  great  passages  in  the  world's  literature.  Every 
word  is  chosen  with  the  nice  sense  of  an  artist,  and 
every  stroke  contributes  something  of  worth  to  the 
total  impression,  and  yet  we  are  aware,  throughout, 
that  the  composition  is  the  report  of  an  eye-witness, 
and  not  the  reproduction  of  an  imaginary  episode. 
For  example,  how  true  to  life  is  the  way  the  people 
who  had  known  the  blind  man  refer  to  him.  What 
had  impressed  them  about  him  was  not  so  much  the 
fact  that  he  was  blind,  but  that  he  was  a  beggar,  and 
had  annoyed  them  many  times,  probably,  with  his  im- 
portunities. And  so  when  the  "neighbors"  seek  to 
identify  him  they  do  not  refer  at  all  to  his  blindness, 
but  to  his  begging.  "The  neighbors  therefore,  and 
they  that  saw  him  aforetime,  that  he  was  a  beggar, 
said.  Is  not  this  he  that  sat  and  begged"  (Jo.  9:8)? 
That  is  a  touch  hardly  possible  to  any  but  an  eye-wit- 
ness. 

The  outstanding  feature,  however,  of  the  account 
of  the  miracle,  of  the  inquiry  and  of  the  subsequent 
discourses,  which  by  no  means  should  escape  our  at- 
tention, is  the  absolute  clearness  and  definiteness  with 
which  Jesus  now  advances  His  Messianic  claim.  He 
asserts  that  He  is  "the  light  of  the  world"  (Jo.  9:5); 
He  declares  that  He  is  "the  Son  of  God"  fjo.  9:35- 
38);  He  is  "the  good  shepherd,"  who  lays  down  His 
life  for  the  sheep  (Jo.  10:11);  He  gives  "eternal  life" 
(Jo.  10:28);  He  is  one  with  the  Father  (Jo.  10:30). 
His  hearers  did  not  misinterpret  the  significance  of 
these  assertions.  "For  a  good  work  we  stone  thee 
not,  but  for  blasphemy;  and  because  that  thou,  be- 
ing a  man,  makest  thyself  God"  (Jo.  10:33). 

This  text  throws  a  clear  light  upon  the  real  signifi- 
cance of  the  claims  of  Jesus.  He  could  not  have 
suffered  Himself  to  be  misunderstood.     That  would 


126  The  Great  Ministry 

have  been  a  grave  injustice  to  Himself  and  to  those 
who  heard  Him.  They  did  not  misunderstand  Him. 
He  advanced  the  most  absolute  and  unequivocal 
claim  to  the  prerogatives  of  deity.  That  was  His 
stupendous  witness  to  Himself  during  this  visit  to 
Jerusalem, 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

True  and  False  Religion. 
Lu.  11:1-13,  37-54;  ch.  12. 

Principal  Fairbairn  has  well  said:  "Looked  at  on 
the  surface  the  conflict  of  Jesus  with  the  Jews  seems 
but  an  ignoble  waste  of  the  noblest  Being  earth  has 
known."  That  is  just  the  Avay  the  reports  of  these 
antagonisms  strike  the  modern  student.  And  yet,  we 
have  to  remember  that  human  nature  has  not  changed 
an  iota  since  the  days  of  Jesus.  The  Pharisees  are 
types  of  men  now  living  and  acting  in  New  York  and 
London  and  Berlin.  In  all  our  villages  there  are  nar- 
row-minded formalists,  hypocrites,  whose  animating 
principle  is  downright  covetousness.  The  men  Jesus 
confronted  and  rebuked,  who  finally  succeeded  in  com- 
passing His  death,  were  simply  representatives  of  the 
world  spirit.  Judaism  is  not  singular  in  that  it  sen- 
tenced Him  to  the  cross.  Judaism  could  not  have 
done  that  without  the  approval  of  Rome,  and  we  well 
know  how  Athens  had  treated  its  great  prophet  four 
centuries  before  this  time.  The  conflict,  which  the 
narratives  of  the  Evangelists  bring  before  us,  is  indeed 
ignoble,  but  its  sordidness,  its  meanness,  its  dishonor, 
are  simply  the  qualities  that  characterize  the  world 
spirit  in  its  perpetual  struggle  against  truth  and  right- 
eousness. 

The  instructions  and  rebukes  of  Jesus  during  the 
Perean  ministry,  which  followed  His  withdrawal  from 
Jerusalem  after  the  feast  of  dedication  (Jo.  10:40), 
take  on  a  sharper  edge  than  heretofore  for  two  rea- 
sons. Perea,  on  account  of  its  mixed  Hebrew  and 
Gentile  population,  became  the  field  in  which  the  spirit 
of  Pharisaism  was  accentuated;  and,  at  this  time,  it 
was  clear  beyond  doubt  that  the  current  of  events  was 

127 


128  The  Great  Ministry 

carrying  Jesus  to  some  violent  end.  In  this  region, 
therefore,  Jesus  confronted  some  of  the  most  ignoble 
phases  of  Pharisaism,  and  He  expressed  Himself  with 
the  absolute  fidelity  that  would  mark  one  who  had 
nothing  to  evade. 

Jesus  summed  up  the  inner  spirit  and  genius  of 
Pharisaism  in  one  biting  word — "hypocrisy."  The 
primary  meaning  of  the  Greek  word  is  "to  answer," 
and  then,  "to  personate  any  one,  to  play  a  part."  "A 
hypocrite,"  therefore,  signifies  one  whose  words  and 
actions  are  intended  to  mislead  others  as  to  his  real 
character  and  motives.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  such 
a  man  will  develop  the  precise  vices  that  Jesus  detected 
and  exposed  in  the  Pharisees.  These  vices  have  a 
genetic,  inevitable  relation  to  the  ruling  principle  of 
the  life.  For  example,  a  hypocrite  will  be  exceedingly 
punctilious  in  observing  the  forms  of  rehgion  (Lu.  11: 
39,  42);  he  will  make  a  parade  of  himself  and  of  his 
observances  (Lu.  11:43);  he  will  be  heartless,  to  the 
point  of  oppression,  in  his  relation  with  his  less  privi- 
leged fellows  (Lu.  1 1 :46) ;  he  will  separate  totally  his 
morality  from  his  religion  (Lu.  11:42);  since  he  does 
not  really  believe  in  the  reality  of  the  things  to 
which  he  pretends  to  be  devoted,  he  will  use  his  oppor- 
tunities to  the  utmost  to  acquire  the  things  in  which 
he  really  does  believe,  namely,  material  possessions 
(Lu.  12:15;  16:14).  That  is  why  religious  hypocrites 
are  almost  invariably  very  covetous.  Their  energies 
are  applied  to  getting  the  things  they  actually  believe 
in,  with  a  faint  regard  to  the  morality  of  the  means 
they  employ,  provided  the  nature  of  their  transactions 
is  not  made  public. 

Students  of  the  life  of  Jesus  have  sometimes  won- 
dered that  He  should  have  dealt  so  tenderly  with  men 
and  women  who  were  frankly  evil,  and  made  no  pre- 
tension to  being  other  than  they  actually  were.  The 
reason  is  plain.  Such  persons  move  with  a  certain 
candor  and  directness,  toward  good  as  well  as  evil. 


True  mid  False  Religion  129 

The  poison  of  indirection,  of  false  pretenses,  of  self- 
deception  is  not  corroding  their  spirits. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  well  to  reflect  that  those 
who  are  really  devoted  to  righteousness,  but,  for  one 
reason  or  another,  suffer  themselves  to  be  reckoned 
with  those  who  are  indifferent  to  it,  are  also  guilty  of 
a  very  subtile  and  dishonorable  hypocrisy.  There  is 
only  one  possible  course  for  a  true  man,  and  that  is 
to  pretend  nothing,  but  to  speak  and  act  in  conformity 
with  his  real  convictions,  to  be  sincere  and  genuine, 
through  and  through. 

With  a  delicate  insight  Luke,  in  selecting  the  ma- 
terials for  his  report  of  the  Perean  ministry,  puts  over 
against  the  account  of  our  Lord's  exposure  and  de- 
nunciation of  the  Pharisees,  that  beautiful  episode  in 
which  He  taught  the  disciples  how  to  pray  (Lu.  1 1 : 
1-4).  That  is  one  thing  a  hypocrite  cannot  do.  He 
can  wash  his  body;  he  can  keep  the  Sabbath;  he  can 
pay  his  tithes,  but  he  cannot  pray.  The  power  of 
really  praying  is  the  sovereign  test  of  the  spiritual 
life  (Acts  9:11).  To  sa}'-  of  another  that  he  is  "a  man 
of  prayer' '  enables  us  to  classify  him  at  once ;  we  know 
where  he  belongs;  the  phrase  gives  us  a  deep  insight 
into  his  spirit. 

The  encouragements  to  prayer  that  Jesus  gave  His 
disciples  (Lu.  11:5-13)  disclose  the  heart  of  the  genu- 
ine religious  spirit.  The  follower  of  Jesus  comes  to 
God  as  a  child  to  his  father.  His  confidence  in  God 
has  all  the  simplicity  and  directness  of  a  son's  trust 
in  his  father's  good  will  toward  him.  That  spirit  of 
living  faith  in  God  is  the  exact  opposite  of  the  temper 
of  the  hypocrite.  And  the  life  growing  out  of  it, 
manifesting  itself  in  word  and  deed,  is  wholesome, 
sincere,  genuine. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

The  Use  of  Privilege. 
Lu.  chs.  13,  14. 

In  Luke's  account  of  the  Perean  ministry  he  selects 
incidents  which  bear  upon  two  leading  topics — our 
Lord's  analysis  and  unveiling  of  the  Pharisaic  spirit, 
and  His  doctrine  as  to  the  use  of  privileges.  The 
latter  is  the  theme  which  runs,  like  a  cord  on  which 
pearls  are  strung,  through  the  thirteenth  and  four- 
teenth chapters. 

Some  one,  for  a  reason  that  can  only  be  surmised, 
desired  His  comment  on  the  suffering  of  the  Galileans 
who  had  provoked  the  vengeance  of  Pilate.  His  reply 
forever  disposed  of  that  false  and  easy  philosophy 
that  the  disasters  of  life  are  invariably  the  measure 
of  the  moral  quality  of  those  who  experience  them. 
But  He  does  not  leave  the  matter  there.  He  asserts, 
in  the  most  unequivocal  way,  that  all  such  speculative 
questions  are  of  minor  importance  compared  with  obe- 
dience to  the  call  of  present  duty  (Lu.  13:5).  This 
truth  is  strikingly  enforced  by  the  parable  of  the  bar- 
ren fig  tree  (Lu.  13:6-9),  in  which  the  call  of  duty 
is  reinforced  by  the  enjoyment  of  special  privilege. 
The  tree  is  spared,  though  it  does  not  bear  fruit,  but  it 
is  to  be  cut  down  as  "a  cumberer  of  the  ground"  when 
it  does  not  respond  to  peculiar  privileges.  The  lesson 
to  our  Lord's  contemporaries  was  plain  enough,  but 
perhaps  we  to-day  do  not  always  appreciate  that  the 
ground  of  our  severest  condemnation  may  be  our  fail- 
ure to  respond  to  peculiar  privileges,  or  our  misuse 
of  them. 

Luke  selects  from  his  material  three  outstanding  in- 
cidents which  illustrate  the  urgency  of  the  demand 
for  the  right  and  full  use  of  one's  gifts  and  oppor- 
tunities. 

130 


The  Use  of  Privilege  131 

In  the  first  instance  we  see  that  this  demand  is  su- 
perior to  all  ceremonial  limitations.  Our  Lord  was 
confronted  by  a  woman  whose  condition  enlisted  the 
sympathy  of  every  right  feeling  man,  whom  it  was 
within  His  power  to  heal.  At  once  He  loosed  her 
from  her  infirmity.  But  it  was  the  Sabbath  when  He 
wrought  this  cure.  His  eager  critics  were  alert  to 
make  the  utmost  of  this  fact  against  Him.  It  often 
seems  to  students  of  the  gospels  as  if  our  Lord  were 
put  to  death  chiefly  because  of  the  freedom  with 
which  He  used  the  Sabbath.  The  answer  of  Jesus  to 
the  cavil  was  unanswerable.  Acting  in  accordance 
with  the  dictates  of  wholesome  human  instincts  men 
do  not  have  any  compunction  that  they  are  doing  vio- 
lence to  moral  requirement  in  loosing  their  oxen  or 
asses  and  leading  them  away  to  watering  on  the  Sab- 
bath. The  ceremonial  requirement  is  to  be  inter- 
preted by  the  ethical  intuition,  not  the  latter  by  the 
former.  The  application  of  this  principle  (Lu.  13: 
16)  was  so  conclusive  that  Luke,  who,  usually,  like 
the  first  two  Evangelists,  avoids  all  characterization 
of  the  inward  experiences  of  those  who  came  into 
contact  with  Jesus,  simply  contenting  himself  with  re- 
cording what  they  said  and  did,  reports  that  "all  his 
adversaries  were  put  to  shame"  (Lu.  13:17).  The 
teaching  can  hardly  be  misunderstood.  The  power 
to  help  men  is  a  divine  charter  that  takes  precedence 
of  all  ceremonial  requirements  or  manufactured  pro- 
prieties. Men  are  bound  to  do  what  God  has  equipped 
them  to  do.  And  it  is  from  the  free,  independent  use 
of  these  God-given  powers  that  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  established — outwardly  growing  like  the  mustard 
seed  into  a  generous  tree,  inwardly  permeating  and 
transforming  human  life  and  conditions  like  the  leaven 
in  the  meal  (Lu.  13:18-21). 

To  take  a  single  instance,  if  John  Wesley  had  not 
been  profoundly  influenced  by  this  teaching  of  Jesus, 
if  he   had  not  disregarded  the   alleged  right  of  the 


132  The  Great  Ministry 

English  bishop  to  restrict  his  benevolent  activities, 
how  much  would  have  been  lost  to  modern  Christian- 
ity? In  his  famous  essay  on  von  Ranke's  History 
of  the  Popes  Lord  Macaulay  calls  attention  to  the 
strange  incapacity  of  historic  Protestantism  to  assimi- 
late and  utilize  the  powers  of  men  for  human  helpful- 
ness that  are  not  within  the  lines  of  a  cult.  There  is 
too  much  truth  in  the  criticism.  The  partial  alien- 
ation, or  at  least  separation,  from  the  Protestant 
churches  of  some  of  the  most  beneficent  activities  of 
our  time  is  a  case  in  point.  It  is  always  easy  for 
narrow-minded  men  to  say,  "There  are  six  days  in 
which  men  ought  to  work:  in  them  therefore  come 
and  be  healed"  (Lu.  13:14). 

Our  Lord's  answer  to  the  question,  "Are  they  few 
that  are  saved?"  (Lu.  13:23)  shows  that  the  moral 
use  of  one's  strength  and  privileges  is  far  more  im- 
portant than  the  solution  of  even  interesting  and 
weighty  problems  of  thought.  The  inquirer  may  have 
meant,  as  his  question  is  commonly  interpreted,  "Is 
the  number  of  those  finally  to  be  saved  large  or  small?" 
Or  he  may  have  inquired  as  to  the  success  of  Jesus' 
work:  Are  there  few  who  are  owning  you  as  the  Mes- 
siah, and  entering  the  kingdom  you  are  seeking  to 
establish?  But,  whatever  the  precise  import  of  the 
query,  the  significance  of  the  answer  is  clear.  The 
important  thing  is  not  to  know  this  or  that  detail  about 
the  kingdom  of  God,  but  actually  to  enter  it,  to  be 
responsive  to  its  motives,  to  share  its  fellowship.  And 
then  follows  one  of  the  most  important  declarations 
in  the  New  Testament  in  its  bearing  upon  the  possi- 
bility that  there  may  be  a  time  when  no  striving  will 
avail  to  bring  one  within  the  kingdom  (Lu.  13:25-30). 

Still  further,  our  Lord's  answer  to  those  who 
warned  Him  of  His  peril  at  the  hands  of  Herod  (Lu. 
13:31)  shows  that  the  right  and  full  use  of  one's 
powers  and  privileges  is  supreme  over  all  considera- 
tions of  personal  safety.     The  answer  is  not  one  of 


The  Use  of  Privilege  133 

the  most  frequently  quoted  sentences  of  Jesus,  but  it 
is  one  that  has  given  courage  to  many  a  heroic  soul, 
who,  in  his  hour  of  stress,  has  been  conscious,  through 
it,  of  unusual  fellowship  with  his  master.  "Neverthe- 
less I  must  go  on  my  way  to-day,  and  to-morrow  and 
the  day  following:  for  it  cannot  be  that  a  prophet 
perish  out  of  Jerusalem"  (Lu.  13:33).  And  the  mood 
in  which  these  words  were  spoken  was  not  one  of 
cold  defiance — a  mood  which  it  is  so  easy  to  mistake 
for  the  noblest— but  one  of  unutterable  love  and  regret 
that  found  expression  in  the  lament  over  Jerusalem 
(Lu.  13:34). 

The  disposition,  however,  to  use  one's  privileges 
worthily  may  be  easily  vitiated  by  self-consciousness 
(Lu.  14:7)  and  by  the  desire  for  a  social  return  (Lu. 
14:12).  The  true  disciple  does  not  push  his  claims 
to  be  honored  by  others,  but  takes  the  lowest  place, 
and  uses  his  powers  for  the  service  of  those  least  able 
to  return  an  equivalent  (Lu.  14:12-24).  Perhaps  the 
menace  of  social  upheaval,  which  some  in  our  own 
time  deem  imminent,  would  be  less  threatening  if 
those  to  whom  God  has  given  peculiar  advantages  had 
been  more  uniformly  inspired  with  the  spirit  of  social 
service  which  Jesus  enjoined. 

The  teaching,  then,  of  our  Lord  is  that  the  right 
and  full  use  of  the  gifts  of  God,  is  more  important 
than  conformity  to  any  ceremonial,  more  important 
than  the  solution  of  any  problems  of  curiosity  or  re- 
flection, and  more  important  than  any  considerations 
of  personal  safety,  but  this  use  must  be  with  self- 
forgetfulness  and  in  the  spirit  of  the  broadest  altruism. 
Or,  if  from  a  little  different  point  of  view  we  ask  how 
would  Jesus  have  men  use  their  powers,  the  answer 
is  independently,  spiritually,  courageously,  modestly, 
and  in  the  temper  of  the  most  generous  sympathy  with 
men  as  men. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

The  Joy  of  God. 

Lu.  chs   15,  16. 

We  are  in  danger  of  missing  many  valuable  in- 
sights as  to  the  significance  and  relationships  of  the 
words  of  Jesus  if  we  do  not  pay  careful  attention  to  all 
the  hints  as  to  the  occasion  on  which  He  uttered  the 
sentences  we  may  be  studying,  and  as  to  His  purpose 
in  speaking  as  He  did. 

This  suggestion  is  particularly  necessary  in  consid- 
ering the  three  beautiful  parables  of  grace,  which 
Luke  has  preserved  in  his  fifteenth  chapter.  We  may 
remark  in  passing  that  these  parables  are  as  noble 
examples  of  narrative  literature  as  can  be  found  any- 
where. There  is  not  a  word  in  the  chapter  that  does 
not  make  its  own  contribution  to  the  picture  Jesus 
would  set  before  us. 

The  occasion  of  these  parables  was  the  criticism, 
which  Jesus  often  met,  that  He  did  not  consort  with 
the  right  kind  of  people.  Probably  He  often  heard 
whispered  the  equivalent  of  the  modern  proverb  that 
a  man  is  known  by  the  company  he  keeps.  If  Jesus 
were  what  He  set  Himself  forth  to  be,  and  what  some 
believed  Him  to  be,  why  did  He  not  associate  with 
the  acknowledged  representatives  of  purity  and  re- 
spectability, and  cease  having  social  intercourse  with 
outcasts?  These  parables  are  our  Lord's  answer  to 
that  criticism  and  innuendo.  The  precise  significance 
of  His  rejoinder  should  not  be  overlooked.  At  the 
close  of  each  parable  He  states  or  implies  that  He  is 
describing  the  conditions  that  bring  joy  to  the  heart 
of  God.  God  rejoices  over  the  repentant  sinner,  as 
the  shepherd  over  rescuing  the  sheep  that  had  strayed 
(Lu.  15:7),  as  the  woman  over  finding  the  coin  she 
had  dropped  or  mislaid   (Lu.  15:10),   as  the  father 

134 


The  Joy  of  God  135 

over  the  return  home  of  the  wayward  son  (Lu.  15: 
22,  23,  32).  The  point,  then,  of  Jesus'  answer  is  that 
God  rejoices  over  the  sinner  that  repents.  Hence,  in 
associating  with  sinful  men  that  He  may  bring  them 
to  repentance,  Jesus  is  doing  the  thing  which  is  su- 
premely pleasing  to  God.  The  answer  is  complete  and 
conclusive,  and  it  lifts  the  whole  topic  of  their  cavil 
into  the  clear  bright  light  of  eternal  relationships. 

But  these  parables  go  further  than  answering  the 
criticism  of  the  Pharisees,  they  suggest  the  reasons 
why  God  has  this  joy  in  repentant  souls.  The  reasons 
are  that  men  belong  to  God  and  have  value  in  His 
sight.  Just  as  the  sheep  belonged  to  the  shepherd,  the 
coin  to  the  woman,  the  son  to  the  father,  so  man  as 
man,  not  as  white  or  yellow  or  black,  not  as  good  or 
bad,  but  man  as  man,  belongs  to  God.  Sometimes 
theologians  have  spoken  as  if  the  ownership  of  man 
were  somewhere  else  than  in  God,  as  if  man  owned 
himself,  or  Satan  owned  him.  However  such  mean- 
ings may  be  tortured  from  a  few  texts  of  Scripture,  the 
ruling  representation  of  the  Hebrew  and  Christian 
revelations  is  that  man  belongs  to  God.  Deep  down 
below  every  other  relationship  is  the  permanent  essen- 
tial tie  between  God  and  the  soul.  God  made  men, 
and  He  has  no  disposition  to  evade  or  transfer  His 
responsibility  for  them.  Men  belong  to  God,  and  He 
constantly  asserts  His  ownership. 

The  other  fact,  which  the  representations  of  Jesus 
imply,  is  that  men  are  precious  in  the  sight  of  God. 
It  is  conceivable  that  God,  like  men,  should  have  those 
belonging  to  Him  who  were  not  dear  to  Him.  Most 
men,  in  one  way  or  another,  have  had  some  experi- 
ence of  that  unhappy  relationship.  They  have  been 
bound  by  strong  ties  to  those  for  whom  they  did  not 
really  and  deeply  care.  But  that,  says  Jesus,  is  not 
the  relationship  of  God  to  men.  He  cares.  Just  as 
the  shepherd  goes  out  into  the  wilderness  to  find  the 
sheep,  just  as  the  woman  spares  no  pains  to  discover 


136  The  Great  Ministry 

the  coin,  just  as  the  father  is  always  desiring  and 
looking  for  the  son's  return,  God  cares  for  men.  He 
wants  the  normal  relationship  between  Himself  and 
them  established.  He  wants  them  as  sons  in  the 
Father's  house. 

Just  here  we  come  very  near  to  the  heart  of  the 
Christian  revelation.  The  teaching  of  Jesus  is  unique 
in  the  emphasis  that  it  places  upon  the  worth  of  the 
human  soul,  upon  the  value  of  personality,  upon  the 
preciousness  of  life.  And  Jesus  grounds  this  appre- 
ciation, not  like  Shakespeare  upon  the  wonder  of 
man's  powers,  not  like  Pascal  upon  the  implications 
of  the  fact  of  self-consciousness,  but  upon  the  precious- 
ness of  man  in  the  sight  of  God.  No  prophet  in  the 
entire  range  of  Hebrew  history  ever  began  to  appre- 
hend, as  Jesus  did,  the  significance  of  that  tremendous 
assertion — take  it  for  all  in  all  the  most  momentous 
and  pregnant  sentence  that  ever  fell  from  human  lips 
— that  man  was  made  in  the  image  of  God. 

The  clear  and  sympathetic  understanding  of  this 
truth  puts  the  great  problems  of  human  life  and  the 
great  questions  of  philosophy  and  religion  in  a  new 
perspective.  It  is  not  unfair  to  say  that  the  theolo- 
gian or  the  exegete  who  does  not  look  at  sin  and  re- 
demption from  this  position  of  Jesus  lacks  the  clue 
for  appreciating  His  message  or  His  work. 

And  we  must  not  think  that  this  revelation  that 
man  belongs  to  God,  and  is  dear  to  God,  has  no  bear- 
ing upon  actual  human  duty.  This  disclosure  brings 
to  bear  upon  human  life  the  noblest  motive  to  right- 
eousness. The  great  difference  between  the  ethnic 
faiths  and  Christianity,  as  we  have  seen  before,  is  this: 
The  former  say.  Do  good,  practice  righteousness  in 
order  that  you  may  gain  the  divine  favor.  Christian- 
ity says,  Do  good,  practice  righteousness  because  you 
have  the  divine  favor  (Phil.  2:12,  13;  2  Cor.  7:1). 
"While  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for  us"  (Rom. 
5:8).     The  Gospel  is  primarily  a  revelation  of  the 


The  Joy  of  God  137 

grace  of  God  to  sinful  men.  And  because  it  is  this 
it  makes  the  profoundest  and  most  vital  appeal  to 
men  to  respond  in  the  use  of  opportunities,  and  in 
deeds  of  righteousness  to  the  love  of  God. 

This  gives  us  the  clue  to  the  connection  between 
the  three  parables  of  grace  in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of 
Luke  and  the  two  parables  of  vv'arning  which  follow. 
In  the  parable  of  the  shrewd  steward  (Lu.  16:1-12), 
our  Lord  enforces  the  duty  of  making  the  wisest  use 
of  present  opportunities;  in  the  parable  of  Lazarus 
and  the  rich  man  (Lu.  16:19-31)  He  makes  it  vividly 
clear  that  no  self-indulgent  conventional  righteousness 
makes  a  worthy  response  to  the  love  of  God  (Lu.  16: 
12-16). 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

The  Lord  of  Life  and  of  Death. 

Jo.  11:1-54. 

Every  one  of  our  Lord's  miracles  is  closely  associ- 
ated with  some  disclosure  of  the  attitude  of  God  to- 
ward men,  or  with  the  revelation  of  some  aspect  of 
Jesus'  character  or  mission.  No  one  of  them  is  a 
mere  wonder,  disassociated  from  spiritual  truth.  If 
we  were  constrained  to  cut  out  of  the  New  Testament 
the  miracles  of  Jesus  we  should  be  deprived  of  some 
of  the  profoundest  insights  which  the  Bible  affords  of 
the   principles,   methods   and   purposes   according  to 


Modern  Bethany. 


From  a  photograph. 


which  God  works,  and  we  should  lose  some  of  the 
clearest  glimpses  of  the  character  of  Jesus,  not  merely 
as  endowed  with  superhuman  power,  but  as  a  moral 
personality.  The  feeding  of  the  multitudes,  the  giv- 
ing of  sight  to  the  man  born  blind,  and  the  raising  of 
Lazarus  withdraw  from  the  face  of  God  the  veil  which 
the  senses  weave. 

Those  who  knew  Jesus  most  intimately  had  the 
strongest  faith  in  Him  as  divine.  This  fact  reverses 
many  ordinary  experiences.  Distance  did  not  lend 
enchantment  to  Him.     The  nearer  men  came  to  Him, 

138 


The  Lord  of  Life  and  of  Death  139 

the  more  impressive  and  convincing  became  the  valid- 
ity of  His  claims.  If  the  episode  (Lu.  10:38-42)  in 
which  Mary,  rather  than  her  sister,  is  described  as 
having  chosen  "the  good  part"  leaves  an  unfavorable 
impression  as  to  Martha,  that  prejudice  vanishes  on 
reading  the  words  with  which  Martha  addressed  Jesus 
when  He  reached  Bethany,  four  days  after  the  death 
of  Lazarus.  "If  thou  hadst  been  here,  my  brother 
had  not  died"  (Jo.  11:21).  Evidently  the  sisters  had 
been  repeating  something  like  this  to  each  other  dur- 
ing the  tedious  hours  they  had  been  waiting  for  Jesus' 
response  to  their  message  (Jo.  11:3),  for  Mary  says 
the  same  thing  a  little  later  (Jo.  11:32).  Though  this 
sentiment  may  not  have  been  entirely  original  with 
Martha,  she  adopts  it  as  the  expression  of  her  own 
conviction,  and  adds  to  it  the  confidence,  "And  even 
now  I  know  that,  whatsoever  thou  shalt  ask  of  God, 
God  will  give  thee!'  (Jo.  11:22). 

But  Jesus  does  not  accept  this  beautiful  confidence 
in  Himself  as  a  full  expression  of  the  faith  He  desires. 
The  days  are  passing  swiftly  during  which  He  can  be 
with  them.  The  training  and  experience  of  the  past 
are  now  sufficient  to  enable  them  to  bear  the  full 
truth.  The  conviction  that  He  is  one  whom  God  will 
hear  is  not  enough.  He  Himself  is  the  fountain  of 
life.  "Jesus  said  unto  her,  I  am  the  resurrection,  and 
the  life:  he  that  believeth  on  me,  though  he  die,  yet 
shall  he  live;  and  whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  on 
me  shall  never  die"  (Jo.  11:25,26).  Martha  was 
ready  for  this  ultimate  disclosure,  and  she  responded 
in  words  that  match  the  supreme  confessions  (Mt.  14: 
33;  16:16;  Jo.  6:69).  Indeed,  in  some  aspects  this 
is  the  great  confession  of  the  gospel  narrative,  for  it 
was  bom,  not  of  speculation,  but  out  of  the  heart  of 
bitter  personal  experience.  It  meant  implicit  con- 
fidence that  Jesus  was  Lord  of  life. 

It  is  worth  noticing  how  the  doctrine  of  the  Messiah- 
ship  of  Jesus  is  woven  into  the  texture  of  the  gospels. 


140  The  Great  Ministry 

Possibly  by  the  exercise  of  rare  critical  skill  one  may 
succeed  in  cutting  out  of  the  gospels  a  few  texts  that 
explicitly  assert  this  high  truth.  But  that  exploit 
does  not  eliminate  the  doctrine  from  the  records.  It 
is  inwrought  in  their  substance,  like  the  threads  of 
silk  in  a  United  States  bank-note.  You  cannot  sepa- 
rate those  threads  from  the  paper  without  destroying 
the  money.  This  doctrine  is  not  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment like  an  alloy  whch  may  be  separated  from  the 
gold  by  the  processes  of  the  crucible.  It  is  in  the  New 
Testament  like  the  scarlet  thread  in  every  cord  and 
cable  used  by  the  British  Navy.  You  cannot  dissect 
out  that  thread  without  destroying  the  rope  through 
which  it  runs. 

John's  description  of  the  conduct  of  the  sisters  is 
Shakespearean  in  its  clear  realization  of  temperaments 
and  their  reactions  upon  circumstances.  The  active 
Martha  is  the  one  to  meet  Jesus,  while  her  sister  "sat 
still  in  the  house. "  And  it  is  Martha  who  gives  ex- 
pression to  their  common  thought,  and  rises  to  the 
height  of  a  great  confession.  At  the  same  time  it  is 
Martha  whose  "sense  realism,"  for  a  moment,  puts 
her  faith  in  the  background,  at  the  improbability  that 
one  who  had  been  dead  four  days  can  be  restored  to 
life  (Jo.  11:39).  On  the  other  hand,  the  contempla- 
tive Mary  is  true  to  her  character  throughout.  Soli- 
tude and  meditation  are  necessary  to  her.  The  out- 
ward fact  slowly  penetrates  into  the  inner  experience ; 
slowly  reshapes  and  colors  it.  When  she  sees  Jesus, 
she  can  only  say  what  her  sister  has  said  before  (Jo.  1 1 : 
32) ;  she  has  no  other  words.  The  surging  heart  can- 
not express  itself  but  in  falling  at  His  feet,  and  in  the 
relief  of  tears  (Jo.  11:32,  ii).  Only  the  greatest  dra- 
matic artists,  like  Sophocles  and  Shakespeare,  are 
capable  of  conceiving  a  personality  so  sharply  that 
the  actions  attributed  to  it  are  perfectly  congruous 
with  the  temperament.  There  is  little  evidence  that 
the  writer  of  the  fourth  gospel  was  such  an  artist. 


The  Lord  oj  Life  aiid  of  Death  141 

Indeed,  he  seems  to  have  been  somewhat  deficient  in 
this  power.  How,  then,  did  he  accompHsh  this 
amazing  result?  May  it  not  be  because  the  eleventh 
chapter  is  not  a  work  of  imagination,  as  some  have 
charged,  but  a  description  of  actual  occurrences? 
Martha  and  Mary  are  described  as  acting  in  conformity 
with  their  temperaments,  because  he  saw  how  these 
women  acted.  The  results  of  literary  criticism  of  the 
gospels  are  by  no  means  uniformly  hostile  to  their 
historicity. 

No  one  can  describe  a  miracle.  John  does  not  at- 
tempt to  do  so.  He  only  gives  us  a  few  external  de- 
tails that  help  us  to  realize  the  scene, — the  weeping 
sisters,  the  throng  of  critical  and  unbelieving  Jews, 
with  here  and  there  a  countenance  upon  which  the 
light  of  a  troubled  faith  has  begun  to  break,  and  among 
them  all,  Jesus,  conscious  of  His  nature,  and  yet  so 
sympathetic  with  the  grief  of  those  He  loves  that  He 
mingled  His  tears  with  theirs. 

The  great  significance  of  this  miracle  does  not  lie 
in  precisely  the  direction  commonly  attributed  to  it. 
It  does  not  prove  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  for 
what  came  to  Lazarus  was  a  return  to  this  life,  with 
all  its  limitations  and  its  inevitable  close,  not  a  resur- 
rection into  the  higher  life.  The  exact  value  of  this 
astounding  miracle  is  that  it  authenticates  the  valid- 
ity of  the  stupendous  claim  of  Jesus  to  be  Himself 
"the  resurrection  and  the  life";  it  vindicates  the 
trustworthiness  of  the  promise,  "Whosoever  liveth 
and  believeth  on  me  shall  never  die  "  (Jo.  11:26).  Or, 
to  put  it  in  another  way,  the  significance  of  this 
miracle  is  its  resplendent  attestation  to  Jesus'  posses- 
sion of  the  prerogative  of  God,  the  Lordship  of  life 
and  death.  It  was  the  convincingness  of  this  demon- 
stration that  carried  the  opposition  of  the  Pharisees 
to  its  climax. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

The  Mind  of  the  Master. 
Lu.  17:11—18:17. 

The  precise  chronology  of  the  events  whch  Luke 
has  grouped  about  our  Lord's  final  journey  to  Jerusa- 
lem is  not  so  important  as  might  at  first  appear.  It 
is  not  even  necessary  to  suppose  that  all  these  occur- 
rences took  place  at  this  period.  What  Luke  is  seek- 
ing to  do  is  not  to  give  us  an  itinerary  or  a  diary,  but 
to  illustrate  the  temper  in  which  Jesus  advanced  to 
the  cross ;  and  it  may  well  be  that  an  event  or  saying 
which  chronologically  should  be  dated  months  before 
is  narrated  in  this  connection;  just  as  an  event  which 
took  place  in  Lincoln's  early  manhood  illustrates  the 
mood  and  disposition  with  which  he  carried  the  bur- 
dens of  the  last  months  of  his  life  quite  as  clearly  as 
anything  he  did  or  said  during  those  final  weeks. 
Luke  has  a  principle  of  selection  and  classification 
but  it  is  not  that  of  time,  except  when  the  time  order 
serves  the  purpose  for  which  he  writes. 

Luke,  then,  would  have  us  recognize  four  great 
convictions  dominant  in  the  thought  of  Jesus  at  this 
critical  epoch.  One  was  that  He  need  not  expect 
from  men  in  general  any  large  gratitude  even  in  re- 
turn for  the  most  conspicuous  services.  The  episode 
of  the  healing  of  the  ten  lepers  put  this  fact  into  salient 
relief.  No  physical  benefit  could  be  greater  than  the 
one  that  had  come  to  them,  but  of  the  ten  only  one 
was  so  deeply  moved  that  ever}^  consideration  of  cere- 
monial requirement,  or  even  of  precise  obedience  to 
the  command  of  Jesus  was  swept  away  and  forgotten 
by  the  imperious  demand  of  the  grateful  heart.  It 
is  sometimes  said  that  it  is  legalistic  and  formal  to 
insist  upon  too  precise  conformity  to  the  commands  of 
Jesus.     But  there  is  only  one  situation  in  which  the 

142 


The  Mind  of  the  Master  143 

commands  of  Jesus  are  superseded  in  the  Christian 
heart;  that  is  not  when  those  commands  cross  our 
comfort  or  convenience,  but  when  they  have  created 
a  new  ethical  and  spiritual  response,  just  as  in  the 
soul  of  this  Samaritan  the  irrepressible  impulse  of 
gratitude  brought  him  back  to  Jesus  before  he  had 
obeyed  the  command  to  show  himself  to  the  priest 
(Lu.  17:14,  15).  It  is  plain  that  Jesus  was  under  no 
illusions  as  to  the  workings  of  human  nature.  In  His 
mind  the  conduct  of  the  men  was  typical  of  what  He 
might  expect  at  the  hands  even  of  those  whom  He 
had  greatly  blessed.  The  significant  thing  is  that  with 
no  illusions  as  to  how  men  would  act  He  pressed  on- 
ward to  the  cross. 

Another  conviction  in  the  mind  of  Jesus  was  the 
certainty  of  the  coming  of  His  kingdom.  One  might 
expect  that  on  the  way  to  Jerusalem,  with  the  tragic 
close  of  His  own  life  becoming  clearer.  His  vision  of 
His  kingdom  would  become  blurred  and  troubled.  The 
waters  ruffled  by  the  wind  reflect  only  confused  images 
and  the  menace  of  peril  disturbs  and  shatters  in  the 
souls  of  men  their  vision  of  the  future.  But  the  con- 
fidence of  Jesus  as  to  His  own  nature  and  work  was 
so  secure  and  ultimate  that  the  shadow  of  the  cross 
instead  of  darkening  the  future  illuminated  it.  No 
one  of  the  Evangelists  has  failed  to  notice  this.  The 
clearest  delineations  of  the  inevitableness  and  vic- 
tory of  His  kingdom,  the  certainty  of  "the  reve- 
lation of  the  Son  of  man"  belong  in  this  period  (Lu. 
17:20-37). 

Still  further,  this  is  the  time  when  the  confidence  of 
Jesus  in  the  power  of  prayer  was  unabated.  The 
problem  of  prayer  reaches  down  to  the  heart  of  the 
profoundest  questions  of  theology.  It  involves  one's 
view  of  the  nature  of  God  and  of  His  relation  to  the 
universe;  it  involves  an  estimate  of  human  nature, 
and  of  the  relation  betAveen  man  and  God.  The  para- 
bles of  the  unjust  judge,  and  of  the  Pharisee  and  the 


144  The  Great  Ministry 

publican  (Lu.  18:1-14)  throw  a  penetrating  light  into 
the  mind  of  Jesus.  The  purpose  of  the  first  is  explic- 
itly stated.  It  was  to  show  men  "that  they  ought 
always  to  pray,  and  not  to  faint"  (Lu.  18:1),  and  there 
is  no  passage  of  the  Scripture  more  fatal  than  this  to 
the  view  that  prayer  has  no  power  to  make  things 
other  than  they  would  have  been  without  it.  The 
second  parable  inculcates  the  humble,  trustful  attitude 
of  soul  toward  God  which  is  the  very  genius  of  true 
prayer.  The  proud,  self-satisfied,  self-righteous  spirit 
does  not  touch  the  heart  of  God,  but  the  penitent  soul 
that  recognizes  its  own  sin  moves  His  heart.  It  means 
much  for  the  faith  of  the  world  in  prayer  that  Luke 
should  tell  us  that  near  the  time  when  Jesus  felt  that 
the  Father  had  forsaken  Him  these  parables  interpret 
His  confidence  in  the  prayer  of  the  humble  and  trust- 
ful heart. 

And  then  Luke  tells  us  that  the  shadow  of  the 
cross  did  not  blind  the  eyes  of  Jesus  to  the  sweetness 
and  beauty  of  unsullied  human  life.  The  incident  of 
the  blessing  of  the  children  is  a  gift  to  the  spiritual 
imagination  of  the  world.  No  matter  wdiat  our  theo- 
ries of  depravity,  Wordsworth  interprets  the  thought 
of  our  Lord  when  he  declares  that  heaven  lies  about 
us  in  our  infancy.  The  child  is  nearer  God  than  man, 
and  men  must  show  something  of  the  relationship  to 
God  that  little  children  have  to  enter  the  kingdom  of 
God.  As  we  bend  over  the  cradles  of  our  ow^n  chil- 
dren the  heart  of  fatherhood  and  motherhood  answers 
to  the  act  of  Jesus.  In  those  dark  hours  the  sense 
of  the  beauty  and  wonder  of  humanity  was  in  the 
heart  of  Jesus,  and  it  may  w^ell  have  been  that  the 
little  children,  whom  He  blessed,  brought  Him  a 
vision  and  a  strength  that  no  friend  or  disciple  could 
impart. 

And  so  the  thought  of  man  as  he  is,  illustrated  in  the 
men  who  show  no  gratitude  for  the  greatest  benefit, 
has  set  over  against  it  in  the  mind  of  Jesus  the  thought 


The  Mind  of  the  Master  »  145 

of  man  as  he  comes  from  God.  And  these  two 
thoughts  of  man,  coupled  with  Jesus'  confidence  in 
His  Kingdom  and  in  the  power  of  prayer,  open  a 
window  into  His  spirit,  and  help  explain  the  serene 
courage  with  which  He  went  to  Jerusalem. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

The  Rewards  of  the  Kingdom. 

Mt.  19:16—20:28. 

The  disciples  of  Jesus,  and  that  larger  company  of 
followers  who  were  attached  to  Him  by  ties  of  wonder, 
admiration  and  genuine  spiritual  insight,  believed  that 
the  final  journey  to  Jerusalem  was  to  issue  in  the  im- 
mediate estabhshment  of  the  Messianic  kingdom.  The 
warnings  of  Jesus  that  this  was  not  to  be  the  case, 

but  that,  on  the  con- 
trary, his  own  death 
was  imminent  as  the  re- 
sult of  this  journey,  fell 
upon  incredulous  ears. 
They  were  wholly  un- 
able to  understand  such 
an  issue  of  such  a  life. 
If  they  understood  what 
His  words  meant  they 
did  not  apprehend  their 
import.  His  forecast  of 
His  death  belonged  to  a 
realm  of  experience  to 
which  nothing  in  their 
ov/n  lives  or  in  their  out- 
look afforded  any  par- 
allel. 

It  is  natural,  there- 
fore, that  the  conversation  of  Jesus  with  disciples, 
and  would-be  disciples,  during  these  last  days  of 
His  ministry  should  turn  upon  some  phase  of  the 
question  of  rewards.  This  was  not  because  Jesus 
turned  their  thoughts  into  these  channels,  but  be- 
cause these  were  the  directions  in  which  their 
thoughts  already  were  running. 

146 


Head  of  Christ. 

From  nofmaun's  picture  of  "Christ  and  the 
Rich  Young  Kuler." 


The  Rewards  of  the  Kingdom  147 

From  a  study  of  these  conversations  we  shall  InuJ 
that  there  emerge  three  great  principles  regulative  oi 
rewards  in  the  kingdom  of  God. 

The  first  is  illustrated  in  the  conversation  with  the 
rich  man.  There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  he  was 
not  absolutely  sincere  in  his  question,  "Good  master, 
what  good  thing  shall  I  do,  that  I  may  have  eternal 
life?"  There  loomed  up  before  his  mental  eye  the 
supreme  and  splendid  reward  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
He  saw  it  and  believed  in  it.  How  was  he  to  obtain 
it?  The  reply  of  Jesus,  starting  with  the  command- 
ments, was  admirably  adapted  to  quicken  his  spirit- 
ual consciousness,  but  mere  commandment  keeping  is 
not  the  ftilfilment  of  the  law.  The  spirit  is  more 
important  than  the  letter,  and  the  spirit  of  love  and 
self-sacrifice  is  the  vital  thing.  Jesus  touched  the  cen- 
ter of  the  man's  need  with  the  point  of  a  needle  when 
He  said,  "If  thou  wouldst  be  perfect,  go,  sell  that 
which  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the  poor,  and  thou  shalt 
have  treasure  in  heaven;  and  come,  follow  me"  (Mt. 
19:21).  It  is  the  spirit  of  unselfishness,  of  self-sac- 
rifice and  self-devotion  which  brings  one  within  the 
circle  of  the  rewards  of  the  kingdom. 

But  this  answer  suggests  a  still  deeper  question.  It 
occurred  at  once  to  Peter,  who  doubtless  heard  the 
conversation  with  the  wealthy  inquirer.  What  are 
the  precise  rewards  of  those  who  v\'illingly  have  made 
conspicuous  sacrifices  for  the  kingdom?  "Lo,  we 
have  left  all,  and  followed  thee;  what  then  shall  we 
have"  (Mt.  19:27)?  To  this  question  Jesus  made  a 
twofold  answer.  In  the  first  place,  no  genuine  follower 
will  fail  to  receive  a  splendid  reward  (Mt.  19:28,  29); 
but  this  reward  will  not  be  proportioned  to  external 
service  but  to  the  spirit  in  which  that  service  Avas 
performed.  The  parable  of  the  servants  clearly  illus- 
trates this  point.  The  significant  word  in  the  parable 
is  "agreed"  (Mt.20:2, 13V  The  householder  made  an 
agreement,  a  bargain,  with  those  whom  he  engaged 


148  The  Great  Ministry 

early  in  the  morning.  Those  who  \vent  to  work  at 
later  hours  made  no  bargain.  They  simply  accepted 
the  assurance  that  the  householder  would  give  them 
"whatever  is  right"  (Mt.  20:4,  5,  7).  They  went  to 
work  on  the  conviction  that  their  employer  would  deal 
fairly  with  them.  The  householder  acted  as  men 
usually  do  in  similar  relations.  When  one  makes  a 
bargain  with  us  for  his  services  we  keep  the  agreement; 
when  he  leaves  it  to  our  sense  of  justice  and  good 
feeling  what  we  shall  give  him,  Ave  pay  him  more  rather 
than  less  than  the  market  value  of  his  work.  One 
salient  teaching  of  the  parable  is  that  it  is  not  well 
to  make  close  bargains  with  God,  but  to  trust  Him 
for  the  reward.  The  service  done  in  the  spirit  of 
trust  will  not  be  unrecognized. 

The  attempt  of  the  mother  of  James  and  John  to 
gain  special  advantage  for  her  children,  probably  at 
the  instance  of  these  disciples  (Mt.  20:24,  comp.  Mk. 
10:35-3  7),  elicited  another  great  principle  that  con- 
trols the  rewards  of  the  kingdom.  These  friends  and 
followers  were  able  to  serve  and  to  suffer;  they  could 
drink  of  the  Lord's  cup  and  be  baptized  Avith  His  bap- 
tism (Mt.  20:22),  but  the  supreme  rewards, — sitting 
on  the  throne  of  the  Master  at  His  right  hand  and 
left, — these,  said  Jesus,  are  "not  mine  to  give,  but  it 
is  for  them  for  whom  it  hath  been  prepared  of  my 
Father"  (Mt.  20:23).  The  rewards  of  the  kingdom 
are  not  under  civil  service  rules  to  which  God  is 
subject,  and  on  the  basis  of  which  men  can  exact 
their  dues.  That  is  not  the  organization  of  the 
kingdom.  The  will  of  God  is  supreme,  and  its 
action  is  not  subject  to  the  justifications  of  our 
standards.  Indeed,  the  very  consciousness  of  con- 
spicuous merit  which  raises  us  in  our  own  esteem 
above  others  may  give  us  a  low  place  in  the  sight 
of  God  (Mt.  20:24-28). 

It  is  difficult  to  see  how  there  could  be  a  more  com- 
plete and  satisfactory  answer  to  the  question  of  the 


The  Rewards  of  the  Jvmgdoin  149 

rewards  of  the  kingdom.  They  are  given  to  unselfish 
and  devoted  souls,  they  are  always  great,  but  greatest 
to  those  who,  without  making  nice  calculations  or 
agreements,  trust  God  for  the  issue,  and  they  are  in 
the  hands  of  the  heavenly  Father  (Mt.  20:23). 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

The  Serenity  op  the  Master. 

Lu.  18:35—19:28;  Jo.  11:55—12:11. 

Many  men  have  been  accounted  heroes  because  un- 
der the  sudden  stress  of  a  strong  emotion  they  have 
shown  themselves  brave  and  self-sacrificing.  Perhaps, 
however,  these  very  persons  would  have  been  wholly 
unequal  to  a  similar  courage  and  devotion  if  the  oc- 
casion which  demanded  those  qualities  had  not  been 
a  swiftly  passing  moment,  but  had  been  prolonged  for 
days  and  weeks  that  called  for  patience,  fortitude  and 
steadiness.     One  of  the  wonderful  aspects  of  the  life 


Modern  Jericho. 


From  "  Olimpsea  of  Bible  Lands.' 


of  Jesus,  is  the  serenity  and  poise  with  which  He  went 
up  to  His  death  at  Jerusalem.  He  knew  what  was  be- 
fore Him.  Over  and  over  again  He  told  His  friends 
that  He  was  nearing  the  end.  They  could  hardly  see 
the  cross  even  when  they  strained  their  eyes ;  He  saw 
it  so  clearly  that  any  effort  to  keep  it  out  of  His 
thought  must  have  been  in  vain.  The  incidents  which 
Luke  and  John  cite  in  connection  with  His  coming  to 
the  city  in  company  with  the  host  of  passover  pil- 
grims set  in  salient  relief  our  Lord's  calm  self-posses- 
sion, His  perfect  mastery  of  human  hopes  and  fears. 

150 


The  Serenity  of  the  Master  151 

For  example,  it  was  on  this  journey,  whether  ap- 
proaching or  leaving  the  city  of  Jericho  does  not  mat- 
ter (Mk.  10:46;  Lu.  18:3S),  that  a  blind  man,  curious 
at  hearing  the  steps  of  the  passing  throng,  was  told 
that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  passed  by.  In  some  way  or 
other  this  man  must  have  learned  of  the  Messianic 
claim  of  Jesus,  for  he  cried  out,  using  a  Messianic 
title,  "Jesus,  thou  son  of  David,  have  mercy  on  me!" 
We  see  in  Jesus  the  same  insight  into  character,  the 
same  sympathy,  that  always  marked  His  miracles. 
Mark  has  told  the  story  inimitably.  Something  of 
the  mastery  and  peace  that  were  in  the  soul  of  Jesus 
steals  into  our  own  souls  as  we  read  and  ponder  the 
familiar  words. 

Again,  it  was  on  this  jovirney  that  He  met  Zacchaeus. 
Nothing  would  have  been  more  natural  than  for  one 
under  such  a  strain  as  that  to  which  our  Lord  was 
subjected,  to  have  been  careless  of  the  publican,  who 
had  been  so  anxious  to  see  the  Master  that  he  had 
cHmbed  a  sycamore  tree  for  a  better  view.  Jesus, 
however,  was  alertly  observant.  He  read  the  stranger 
like  an  open  book,  and  invited  Himself  to  the  tax- 
gatherer's  house.  One  wishes  exceedingly  that  a 
report  of  the  conversation  between  the  Master  and 
Zacchffius,  as  they  sat  at  meat,  behind  closed  doors  in 
the  publican's  house,  had  been  preserved.  It  would 
have  been  an  illustration  of  insight,  tact  and  fidelity 
which  the  Christian  world  sorely  needs.  It  is  an 
undertaking  worthy  of  any  one's  imaginative  power, 
to  seek  to  construct  a  conversation  worthy  of  Jesus 
and  true  to  the  character  of  Zacchaeus.  The  very 
difficulty  of  such  a  task  illuminates  the  wonder  of  the 
miracle  to  which  those  must  hold  who  teach  that  the 
early  church  invented  the  gospels.  We  do  not  knov," 
what  was  said  in  Zaccheeus'  house,  but  we  know  that 
the  teaching  and  the  personality  of  the  Master  trans- 
formed His  host.  The  confession  of  Zacchaeus  (Lu. 
19:8)  is  one  of  the  best  evidences  of  a  thorough  change 


152  The  Great  Ministry 

of  heart  recorded  anywhere.  This  man's  nature  at 
least  was  not  built  in  water-tight  compartments. 
The  new  conviction  and  the  new  experience  flooded 
his  whole  life,  as  the  sunlight  floods  a  room  when  the 
closed  shutters  are  flung  open.  His  business  practices 
as  well  as  his  spiritual  impulses  were  transformed, 
or  rather  his  spiritual  impulses  were  so  genuine  and 
vital  that  they  influenced  the  whole  man.  With  the 
prospect  of  the  cross  immediately  before  Him,  Jesus 
seems  to  have  experienced  for  the  moment  something 
of  the  elasticity  and  joy  of  His  early  Galilean  work. 
The  supreme  purpose  of  His  mission  stood  sharply 
and  freshly  before  His  mind  as  He  said,  "The  Son  of 
man  came  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was  lost" 
(Lu.  19:10). 

The  parable  of  the  pounds  illustrates  the  same  tem- 
per in  the  attitude  of  our  Lord  at  this  critical  period. 
It  must  be  interpreted  with  reference  to  its  purpose, 
namely,  to  disabuse  His  followers  of  the  notion  that 
the  kingdom  of  God  was  to  appear  at  once  (Lu.  19: 
11).  As  men  gradually  increase  their  property  by 
the  processes  of  trading,  the  kingdom  of  God  was  to 
come  slowly  by  the  wise  human  use  of  divine  gifts. 
The  kingdom  of  God  comes  like  a  prudent  business 
man's  fortune;  not  at  a  stroke  like  a  profit  made  in 
speculation,  but  gradually  by  the  processes  of  legiti- 
mate business.  The  sagacious,  large,  discriminating 
outlook  upon  life  this  parable  involves  bears  new  tes- 
timony to  the  clarity  and  poise  of  the  vision  of  Jesus. 

The  supper  at  Bethany  beautifully  confirms  the 
same  impression.  What  a  remarkable  group  was 
gathered  about  that  board — the  two  sisters,  so  differ- 
ent and  yet  so  admirable,  whose  faith  and  love  had 
responded  to  supreme  tests;  Lazarus,  who  had  come 
back  from  beyond  the  grave,  and  the  group  of  the 
disciples,  even  Judas  with  the  rest!  The  atmosphere 
of  the  scene  is  surcharged  with  emotion.  Jesus  sees 
what  is  before  Him.     The  sisters  are  vaguely  con- 


The  Serenity  of  the  Master  153 

scious  of  impending  evil.  The  disciples  half  share 
their  foreboding.  And  there  is  Lazarus,  a  witness 
to  the  Master's  power  over  death.  In  that  quiet  home 
in  Bethany  there  is  every  element  that  makes  for  a 
tense  dramatic  situation.  There  is  fear  and  wonder, 
gratitude  and  love,  and  the  consciousness  of  a  power 
that  is  above  human  ken.  It  is  one  of  those  occasions 
in  which  no  words  are  adequate.  The  act  of  Mary 
in  breaking  the  box  of  costly  ointment  over  the 
Master's  feet  is  the  only  sufficient  expression  of  the 
emotion  of  the  hour.  But  there  is  nothing  over- 
Avrought  or  hysterical  either  in  the  scene  or  its  de- 
scription. In  Jesus'  calm  recognition  of  the  prophetic 
quality  of  Mary's  act  (Jo.  12:7)  we  gain  a  penetrating 
glimpse  into  a  matchless  serenity,  in  the  face  of  death 
slowly  drawing  nearer,  which  makes  Jesus  the  ultimate 
exponent  of  the  heroic. 

No  picture  has  so  lingered  before  the  imagination 
of  the  race,  and  so  inspired  men  to  be  brave  and 
strong  and  true,  as  the  representation  of  the  last  days 
of  the  life  of  Jesus.  But  we  do  not  get  the  full  im- 
pression of  the  heroism  of  Jesus  when  we  think  of 
Him  before  Caiaphas  or  before  Pilate;  we  need  also 
to  think  of  Him  as  patient,  sympathetic,  unstartled, 
and  undiverted  from  His  mission  during  those  days 
when  He  was  going  to  Jerusalem  to  meet  the  cross. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

The  Secret  of  Jesus. 
Review  of  Chapters  XXVII-XXXVIII. 

As  we  look  in  broad  outline  at  the  section  of  the 
life  of  Jesus  embraced  in  the  period  of  about  eight 
months  from  the  transfiguration  to  the  supper  at 
Bethany,  several  features  of  our  Lord's  ministry  are 
thrown  into  sharp  relief. 

One  is  His  persistence  in  the  purpose  to  bear  the 
witness  and  to  accomplish  the  work  which  the  Father 
had  appointed  for  Him.  A  general  survey  of  this 
epoch  makes  it  plain  that  not  merely  in  isolated  in- 
stances did  He  meet  with  discouragements  that  must 
have  tempted  Hiin  sorely  to  change  His  aim  or  to  re- 
lax His  hold  upon  it,  but  that  the  intervals  were  ex- 
ceedingly rare  when,  from  a  human  point  of  view, 
He  could  have  felt  the  least  inspiration  from  circum- 
stances to  remain  true  to  His  original  purpose.  We 
must  not  imagine  that  the  temptations  which  beset  our 
Lord's  career  were  confined  to  the  forty  days'  experi- 
ence in  the  wilderness  after  His  baptism.  In  a  deep 
sense  His  whole  career  must  have  been  a  temptation. 
There  are  plenty  of  instances  in  the  gospels  in  which 
a  discerning  reader  detects  the  force  of  the  solicitations 
that  appeal  to  Jesus  to  choose  a  course  of  less  abso- 
lute devotion  to  His  ideals.  By  skilful  comprom.ises, 
by  veiling  His  meaning  more  completely,  by  not  insist- 
ing so  unequivocally  upon  His  claims,  He  might  have 
saved  His  life,  but  there  are  no  traces  of  such  weak- 
nesses in  Jesus.  He  stands  forth  as  the  type  of 
heroic  devotion  to  the  highest  purpose,  and  that  by 
methods  that  are  absolutely  frank,  outspoken  and 
sincere.  It  is  not  strange  that  now  for  many  centuries 
those  who  have  been  tempted  to  give  over  noble  pur- 
poses have  found  in  the  brief  story  of  the  life  of  Je- 

154 


The  Secret  of    Jesus  155 

sus,  enshrined  in  our  four  gospels,  a  fountain  of 
refreshment.  Through  the  record,  the  Master  has 
transferred  to  the  souls  of  His  followers  something 
of  that  strength  of  will  and  that  defiance  of  circum- 
stances which  marked  His  own  life  here  on  the  earth. 

Another  characteristic  of  the  life  of  Jesus  that  comes 
out  prominently  in  this  period  is  His  undisturbed,  un- 
ruffled graciousness.  This  is  the  period  of  some  of  the 
most  sympathetic  deeds  of  power,  and  of  the  most 
delicate  and  touching  insights  into  character.  It  often 
happens  that  men  who  pursue  their  purposes  with  an 
energy  and  resolution  that  nothing  thwarts  are  very 
gracious  in  their  relations  with  those  they  love.  The 
private  letters  of  Prince  Bismarck,  recently  published, 
show  that  "the  iron  chancellor"  had  a  tender  heart  in 
his  domestic  circle.  There  is  nothing  at  all  uncommon 
in  that  combination  of  qualities,  but  what  is  un- 
usual is  for  one  to  display  these  qualities  toward  per- 
sons who  are  not  one's  friends.  Bismarck's  oppo- 
nents and  enemies  were  one  thing,  his  friends  another, 
and  to  one  group  he  manifested  one  side  of  his  char- 
acter, to  the  other  a  different  one.  There  is  no  hint 
of  graciousness  in  the  historic  interview  with  Thiers, 
when  the  terms  of  peace  with  France  were  negotiated. 
The  peculiar  feature  of  the  character  of  Jesus  is  that 
the  steel-like  hardness  of  His  resolution  did  not  take 
away  His  graciousness  toward  those  against  whom 
His  resolution  was  directed.  There  is  no  trace  of 
personal  vindictiveness  or  rancor  in  His  spirit.  The 
lament  over  Jerusalem,  which  killed  the  prophets  and 
was  about  to  kill  Him,  has  become  a  classic  expression 
of  affection,  devotion  and  heart-breaking  regret.  It 
springs  from  the  love  that  will  not  let  its  object  go. 

But,  after  all,  this  persistence  of  purpose  and  this 
perennial  graciousness  are  only  manifestations  of  a 
characteristic  of  Jesus  that  lies  far  deeper  than  either 
of  them,  and  that  is  His  abiding  confidence  in  God; 
that  He  was  the  Father's  Son,  that  He  was  doing  the 


156  The  Great  Ministry 

Father's  will,  that  the  Father  would  carry  His  cause 
to  triumph.  One  of  the  profoundest  of  His  self-dis- 
closures was  His  declaration  that  it  was  His  meat 
to  do  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  Him.  This  is  the  sov- 
ereign clue  that  explains  the  human  life  of  Jesus,  and 
enables  us  to  see  how  qualities  that  are  not  harmonized 
in  most  of  us,  in  Him  are  united  in  perfect  agreement. 
Indeed,  this  consciousness  is  the  secret  of  every  life 
that  is  rarely  effective  in  the  highest  ways  of  human 
service. 

The  letters  of  Martin  Luther,  which  happily  have 
been  recently  translated  into  English,  give  us  a  rare 
glimpse  into  the  secret  of  his  strength — into  his  loy- 
alty to  his  mission,  which  led  him  to  resist  all  the 
blandishments  of  Leo  X  and  of  Charles  V,  and  into 
his  graciousness  toward  his  opponents,  which  led  him 
to  send  a  message  of  comfort  to  the  dying  Tetzel. 
Luther  had  a  controlling  conviction  that  he  was  do- 
ing God's  will.  The  consciousness  that  we  are  in 
God's  hands,  that  we  are  carrying  out  His  purposes, 
hardens  the  soft  iron  of  our  native  resolution  into 
steel,  and,  at  the  same  time,  it  so  lifts  us  above  the 
petty  resentments  and  rancors  of  unhappy  human  con- 
tacts that  we  can  love  our  enemies,  and  do  good  to 
those  who  despitefully  use  us. 

No  greater  blessing  can  come  to  a  human  life,  to 
make  it  at  once  strong  and  sweet,  than  the  conviction, 
penetrating  to  its  very  center,  that  it  is  doing  the 
Father's  will.  Then  the  little  fragment  of  our  human 
experience  finds  its  adjustment  to  the  cosmic  plan  of 
God,  and  something  of  the  dignity  and  power  and 
glory  of  the  eternal  sweeps  into  our  souls.  That  was 
the  secret  of  Jesus. 


CHAPTER  XL. 

Going  up  to  Jerusalem. 

Mt.  21:1-22;  Lu.  19:39-43;  Jo.  12:16-19. 

The  determination  of  Jesus  to  attend  the  passover 
in  Jerusalem  in  the  year  thirty  of  our  era  was  a  more 
critical  point  in  the  life  of  our  Lord  than  a  cursory 
reader  of  the  gospels  might  at  first  suppose.  It  would 
have  been  entirely  practicable  for  Him  to  have  sought 
a  hiding  place  from  which  He  might  reappear  at  some 
opportune  moment.  Indeed,  He  might  have  been 
quite  safe  in  Perea,  where  His  ministry  was  winning  a 
success  that  recalled  His  early  Galilean  work.     The 


The  Mount  of  Olives  from  Jerusalem. 

Showing  the  temple  area  in  the  foreground  and  the  roads  over  and  around  the  Mount  of 
Olives. 

disciples  were  keenly  alive  to  the  peril  of  His  immedi- 
ate reappearance  in  Judea.  When  the  news  reached 
Him  that  Lazarus  was  sick  they  attempted  to  dissuade 
Him  from  coming  so  near  Jerusalem  as  the  suburb 
of  Bethany  (Jo.  11:7,  8).  One  of  the  hghts  which 
John  throws  upon  the  character  of  Thomas,  called 
Didymus,  is  his  report  that,  at  this  time  of  peril, 
Thomas  said  to  his  fellow  disciples,  "Let  us  also  go 
that  we  may  die  with  him"   (Jo.  11:16). 

The  decision,  therefore,  of  Jesus  to  attend  this  pass- 
157 


158  The  Great  Ministry 

over  involved,  as  both  He  Himself  and  the  disciples 
clearly  saw,  the  whole  tragedy  which  followed.  If 
He  had  wished  to  save  His  life,  this  was  the  time. 
Either  He  should  not  have  gone  to  Bethany  at  the 
call  of  the  sisters,  or,  having  restored  Lazarus  to  life, 
He  should  have  withdrawn  quickly  and  secretly  into 
Perea.  From  this  point  of  view  it  will  be  seen  at 
once  that  His  giving  up  His  life  antedated  the  death  on 
the  cross,  the  interview  with  Pilate,  and  even  the 
night  of  agony  in  the  garden.  If  He  had  not  gone  to 
Jerusalem  He  might  have  escaped  all  these.  If  we 
are  to  commemorate  the  events  of  the  gospel  story 
with  an  approach  to  spiritual  insight  we  shall  not 
make  Palm  Sunday  a  feast  of  joy,  for  it  is  vitally 
associated  with  the  supreme  experience  of  Jesus. 

The  Evangelists  do  not  leave  us  in  doubt  as  to  the 
motive  which  led  Jesus  to  take  this  dangerous  step. 
They  tell  us  directly  and  by  implication  that  He  went 
to  Jerusalem  to  bear  a  complete  witness  to  the  truth 
that  would  satisfy  His  own  nature.  Up  to  this  time 
His  message  had  not  been  fully  delivered.  There 
were  in  it  aspects  of  judgment  as  well  as  of  tender- 
ness that  had  not  been  fully  made  known.  The  lead- 
ing spirits  of  the  nation  had  turned  against  Him,  but 
before  they  rejected  Him  finally  they  should  be  con- 
fronted with  the  whole  truth.  The  reason  that  led 
Jesus  to  go  to  Jerusalem  was  not  any  hardy  spirit  of 
bravado;  it  was  not  any  disposition  to  lay  down  His 
life  without  adequate  cause;  He  was  driven — the 
word  is  not  too  strong — to  go  to  Jerusalem  by  a  su- 
preme ethical  demand.  He  must  speak  His  whole 
message;  He  must  be  true  to  His  mission.  The  rea- 
son that  led  Jesus  to  go  to  Jerusalem  was  the  reason 
that  leads  a  soldier  to  obey  a  command  to  go  where 
he  is  sent,  to  hold  the  post  to  which  he  is  assigned, 
to  do  the  duty  to  which  he  is  ordered. 

There  are  some  representations  of  the  life  of  Jesus 
that  make  Him  simply  a  creature  of  circumstances, 


Going  up  to  Jerusalem  159 

caught  in  the  whirHiig  mechanism  of  Jewish-Roman 
poHtics.  That  is  far  from  the  truth.  His  death  was 
not  inevitable.  He  might  have  escaped  it,  but  He 
could  not  escape  it  and  be  true  to  His  mission.  And 
that  is  why  men  in  every  age  who  have  had  to  weigh 
the  comfort  of  their  bodies  against  the  peace  of  their 
souls,  their  inclination  against  their  mission,  their  life 
against  fidelity  to  duty,  have  found  such  inspiration 
and  impulse  to  the  noble  course  in  the  career  of  Jesus. 
He  does  not  merely  point  out  the  way,  but  He  leads 
in  it.  The  closing  chapter  of  Cardinal  Newman's 
Callista  is  simply  a  portraiture  of  the  way  loyal  souls 
have  met  the  gravest  sacrifices  and  death  itself  under 
the  inspiration  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Our  Lord's  actual  entrance  to  the  city  was  not  only 
overshadowed  by  the  knowledge  that  He  was  going  to 
His  death,  but  also  by  His  pity  for  the  multitude  and 
His  forecast  of  the  approaching  doom  of  the  beauti- 
ful and  sacred  city.  The  sound  of  the  hosannas  of 
the  multitude  awakened  no  self-gratulation  in  His 
bosom.  Luke  tells  us  what  He  felt  while  they  were 
flinging  palm  branches  in  His  way,  and  the  air  was 
vocal  with  the  song,  "Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord."  "And  when  he  drew  nigh, 
he  saw  the  city  and  wept  over  it,  saying.  If  thou  hadst 
known  in  this  day,  even  thou,  the  things  which  belong 
unto  peace!  but  now  they  are  hid  from  thine  eyes" 
(Lu.  19:41,42).  And  then  Luke  goes  on  to  tell  us 
how  there  swept  before  His  eyes  a  vision  of  the  Roman 
siege.  He  saw  from  afar  the  gathering  of  the  ar- 
mies of  Titus,  the  cloud  of  arrows  under  which  the 
battering-rams  assailed  the  fair  walls,  the  destruction 
of  the  temple,  the  fire,  the  rapine  and  the  outrage — 
the  memorial  of  which  still  meets  our  eyes  in  the  arch 
of  Titus  at  Rome.  Twice  our  Lord  is  said  to  have 
wept,  once  at  the  tomb  of  Lazarus — the  Greek  word 
used  to  describe  His  act  there  signifies  suppressed  and 
silent  weeping — and  again  on  this  occasion — the  word 


160  The  Great  Muiistry 

used  here  signifies  audible  weeping,  the  conviilsive 
sobbing  of  unsubdued  emotion.  That  was  the  way 
Jesus  felt  on  that  bright  April  day  when  He  rode  in- 
to the  city  accompanied  by  the  applause  of  the  multi- 
tude. 

The  driving  of  the  traders  from  the  temple  (Mt. 
21:12,  13),  and  the  parable  in  action  of  the  barren  fig 
tree  (Mt.  21:18-22),  represent  the  beginning  of  the 
witness  for  which  He  came  to  the  city.  As  we  study 
in  detail  the  events  of  the  passover  week  we  shall 
see  in  these  incidents  simply  the  prelude  of  that  call 
to  purity  and  usefulness  w^hich  constitute  the  heart  of 
the  message  of  Jesus.  He  believed  that  those  who 
were  loyal  to  this  message  would  also  be  loyal  to  Him, 
its  witness  and  exponent.  He  who  loved  the  light 
would  recognize  the  light  of  the  world  (Jo.  1:19-21; 
9:5).  The  condemnation  of  the  Jewish  nation  was 
not  so  much,  in  the  first  instance,  that  they  did  not  ac- 
cept Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  but  that  they  were  disloyal 
to  the  light  they  confessedly  had,  and  that  disloyalty 
blinded  their  eyes  and  hardened  their  hearts  to  Him. 


CHAPTER  XLI. 

The  Nature  of  Sin. 

Mt.  21:23—22:14. 

The  festal  entry  of  Jesus  into  Jerusalem  and  His  bold 
act  of  driving  the  traffickers  in  the  temple  from  its 
sacred  precincts,  were  a  challenge  which  the  Hebrew 
authorities  were  not  disposed  to  ignore.  Accord- 
ingly, to  bring  matters  to  an  issue,  they  sent  a  deputa- 
tion to  Jesus  raising  the  vital  question  of  His  au- 
thority: "By  what  authority  doest  thou  these  things? 
and  who  gave  thee  this  authority"  (Mt.  21:23)?  The 
question  itself  was  a  legitimate  one,  and  our  Lord's 
reply  was  not  a  shrewd  trap  to  involve  His  questioners 
in  a  dilemma,  but  His  counter  question,  "The  bap- 
tism of  John,  whence  was  it?  from  heaven  or  from 
men?"  (Mt.  21:25)  was  a  genuine  and  serious  reply 
to  their  query.  The  true  answer  to  the  question  of 
Jesus  was  the  one  that  the  multitudes  had  given,  and 
the  one  that  the  leaders  of  the  Jews  would  have  given 
had  not  their  selfish  passions  and  interests  prohibited. 
The  baptism  of  John  was  from  heaven.  How  did 
they  knoAv  that  it  was  from  heaven?  They  did  not 
know  it  because  John  had  external,  official  credentials 
of  any  sort,  but  they  knew  it  because  his  teaching 
awakened  a  deep  and  vital  response  in  their  hearts. 
His  message  was  self-evidencing.  It  fitted  the  needs 
of  the  souls  that  God  had  made,  and  the  conclusion 
was  irresistible  that  it  came  from  God.  The  counter 
question  of  Jesus  then  is  not  an  evasion  of  the  close 
inquiry  that  "the  chief  priests  and  elders  of  the 
people"  pressed  upon  Him.  They  might  find  it  per- 
plexing, but  that  would  only  be  because  they  did  not 
want  to  meet  it  by  an  honest  reply.  The  clear,  unmis- 
takable implication  of  the  question  was  that  the 
authority  of  Jesus  was  like  the  authority  of  John.     It 

161 


162 


The  Great  Ministry 


did  not  depend  on  badges,  seals  or  documents;  it  did 
not  require  any  external  credential  whatever;   it  was 

immediate  and  self- 
evidencing.  Those 
who  saw  and  heard 
Him  did  not  need 
any  certification  of 
Jerusalem  officials 
that  He  came  from 
God;  His  personal- 
ity and  message 
were  their  own  au- 
thentications. 

This  question  of 

the   officials   has   a 

strangely      modern 

k  is  dry  sound.         Substan- 


Bridge  over  the  Brook  Kidron. 


Thisb 
crossed  it  .nauy   ^-^Jjy  -^   -g  ^^g  ^^^g 


Showing  Absalom's  tomb  on  the  right. 
in  summer,  but  full  in  winter.  ,Iesu 
times  during  the  last  week  of  His  life. 

tion  that  thought- 
ful minds  are  asking  to-day  in  all  our  churches  and 
colleges  and  seminaries,  What  is  the  authority  of 
Jesus.?  What  are  His  credentials  to  be  the  supreme 
guide  of  human  life?  It  is  not  possible  to  improve 
upon  the  answer  that  Jesus  Himself  gave.  His  au- 
thority ultimately  rests  upon  the  self-evidencing 
quality  of  His  personality  and  of  His  revelation.  In 
Him  God  speaks  to  the  heart  He  has  made.  The  soul 
which  hears  that  voice  finds  that  there  arises  within 
itself  a  compelling  conviction  as  to  Jesus,  which  be- 
comes the  source  of  certainties  that  are  not  produced 
by  inferences  from  external  data  (Jo.  4:14).  In  the 
great  words  of  John,  the  believer  has  the  witness  in 
himself  (1  Jo.  5:10). 

The  main  point,  then,  of  our  Lord's  condemnation 
of  the  chief  priests  and  elders  of  the  people  was  that 
they  had  not  been  loyal  to  the  light  they  had.  Their 
rejection  of  Him  was  simply  the  outcome  of  a  long 
course  of  violence  to  moral  convictions.     At  bottom 


The  Nature  of  Sin  163 

there  is  no  inherent  difference  between  the  rejection 
of  Christ,  and  disloyalty  to  any  moral  conviction,  for 
the  claims  of  Christ  report  themselves  in  the  inner  life 
as  a  moral  conviction.  If  they  do  not,  He  is  not  truly 
accepted  or  rejected. 

In  three  parables,  spoken  in  the  Court  of  the  Gen- 
tiles, Jesus  drives  home  to  the  consciences  of  His 
hearers  this  infidelity  of  the  leaders  and  of  the  nation 
to  moral  conviction.  In  the  parable  of  the  two  sons 
(Mt.  21:28-31)  He  sharply  contrasts  saying  and  do- 
ing. Judaism  had  been  prolific  in  professions,  but 
it  had  rested  there.  In  actual  obedience  to  God, 
loyalty  to  the  truth,  it  had  been  wanting.  The  son 
who  professes  much  and  does  nothing  lacks  the  filial 
disposition. 

But  the  condemnation  of  Israel  was  not  simply  that 
it  had  not  done  what  it  professed,  but  that  it  had 
been  false  to  a  great  trust.  In  the  parable  of  the 
vineyard  and  the  husbandmen  (Mt.  21:33-43)  this  is 
put  in  the  clearest  light.  The  husbandmen  held  the 
property  as  a  trust,  and  in  diverting  it  to  their  own 
purposes  they  not  only  did  wrong,  but  they  wronged 
others.  That  is  something  that  we  all  are  apt  to 
forget.  We  think  that  faithlessness  to  our  convic- 
tions of  righteousness  injures  only  ourselves;  we  for- 
get that  such  disloyalt}^,  influencing  as  it  does  the  use 
of  our  time,  our  endowments,  our  privileges,  our 
opportunities,  our  property,  affects  others,  for  we 
hold  all  these  things  not  as  owners  of  their  fee,  but 
as  trustees  for  God  and  for  our  fellow  men.  The  con- 
demnation which  the  story  led  our  Lord's  hearers  to 
pronounce  upon  the  husbandmen  was  the  spontaneous 
verdict  of  their  own  moral  natures  upon  the  course 
of  Israel. 

But  in  this  faithlessness  of  Israel  to  the  light  it  had, 
the  nation  had  not  only  wronged  itself  and  others,  but 
it  had  despised  God.  That  is  the  point  of  the  parable 
of  the  marriage  feast.     Even  among  us  to-day  one 


164  The  Great  Ministry 

can  hardly  commit  a  more  serious  affront  than  to 
take  no  notice  of  an  invitation  to  a  wedding.  The 
wedding  is  the  great  epoch  in  the  lives  of  those  con- 
cerned. By  paying  no  attention  to  the  invitation  to 
attend  it,  you  say  in  the  most  pointed  way  that  you 
have  no  interest  or  sympathy  as  to  a  matter  which  so 
vitally  concerns  your  friends.  There  is  only  one 
greater  offense,  and  that  is,  having  accepted  the  invi- 
tation, to  show  by  your  manner,  bearing  and  garb 
that  you  are  indifferent  to  the  proprieties  of  the 
occasion.  That  is  the  significance  cff^'the  condemna- 
tion of  the  guest  without  "a  wedding  garment." 
The  insult  was  as  great  to  the  host  as  if  one  should  go 
to  a  wedding  in  a  golf  suit  or  a  shooting  jacket.  Such 
a  garb  would  be  conclusive  evidence  that  the  one  who 
wore  it  despised  the  host  and  was  utterly  out  of  sym- 
pathy wdth  the  occasion.  That,  said  Jesus,  is  the 
way  Israel  has  treated  God.  She  has  not  only 
wronged  herself  by  her  unfilial  conduct,  she  has 
wronged  others;  and  done  despite  to  the  Most  High. 
It  will  be  difi^cult  upon  the  utmost  reflection  to  sug- 
gest a  keener  analysis  of  the  nature  of  sin  than  Jesus 
gave  the  Jews  that  day  in  the  temple  court,  and  it  is 
as  modem  as  our  morning  newspaper.  The  root  of 
sin  is  disloyalty  to  the  moral  conviction  which  arises 
in  the  soul  when  it  sees  the  truth.  In  that  disloyalty 
the  soul  wrongs  itself,  does  injustice  to  others,  and 
contemns  God.  The  disloyalty  of  Judaism  to  its 
moral  conviction  as  to  Jesus,  was  not  an  isolated  act, 
it  was  the  sequence  and  the  outcome  of  the  past. 


CHAPTER  XLII. 

The  Witness  of  Jesus. 
Mt.  22:15—23:39. 

Our  Lord's  analysis  of  the  sins  of  the  representa- 
tives of  Judaism  led  to  a  coalition  of  the  three  Hebrew 
parties  which  were  naturally  and  historically  antago- 
nistic one  to  another.  These  were  the  Herodians, 
who  had  accepted  the  Roman  domination  as  an  ac- 
complished fact,  and  were  regarded  by  those  who  as- 
pired to  Jewish  independence  as  renegades ;  the  Phari- 
sees, who  represented  traditional  orthodoxy;  and  the 
Sadducees,  who  appear  to 
have  been  the  rationalist  and 
skeptical  party  in  the  Jewish 
church,  and  who  had  suc- 
ceeded in  holding  the  chief 
official  places  in  the  organ- 
ized religious  life  of  the  na- 
tion. The  fact  that  these 
warring  interests  should 
have  been  drawn  together  in  opposition  to  Jesus 
reveals  the  extent  of  His  popular  following,  or  the 
stirrings  of  conscience  His  words  had  occasioned. 
Probably  both  factors  entered  into  the  situation. 
The  leaders  of  all  these  parties  saw  that  the  people 
were  becoming  profoundly  moved,  and  they  also  felt 
poignant  convictions  as  to  the  truth  of  His  words. 
All  parties,  therefore,  were  under  strong  motives  to 
entangle  Him  in  some  situation  which  would  aitord 
a  colorable  pretext  for  getting  Him  out  of  the  way. 

The  easiest  method  of  doing  this  was  to  induce  Him 
to  say  something  which  might  be  construed  as  treason- 
able to  Rome.  Then  the  Roman  power  might  step  in 
and  dispose  of  Him.  This  course  would  have  the  con- 
siderable advantage  of  preventing  the  Roman  authori- 

165 


Coin  of  Tiberius. 

The  Cajsar  at  the  time  of  this  lesson. 


166  The  Great  Ministry 

ties  from  regarding  the  popular  uprising  in  favor  of 
Jesus  as  abetted  by  the  leaders  of  the  Jews  in  opposi- 
tion to  Rome,  for  they  would  be  enabled  to  appear  as 
complainants  against  Jesus.  The  sedition  would  be 
His,  not  theirs,  and  they  would  appear  as  the  support- 
ers of  Roman  authority  against  a  treasonable  fanatic. 
This  line  of  reasoning  so  commended  itself  to  them, 
that,  after  their  attempt  to  involve  Jesus  in  treason- 
able utterances  had  failed,  they  asserted  that  it  had 
succeeded,  in  order  to  get  the  advantage  that  such  a 
charge  might  give  them  in  the  eyes  of  Roman  officials 
(Lu.  23:2). 

The  first  attack  was  adroitly  planned  (Mt.  22:17- 
22) .  It  seemed  impossible  to  answer  the  question,  "Is 
it  lawful  to  give  tribute  unto  Caesar,  or  not?"  without 
falling  into  the  trap.  If  He  said  "Yes, "  He  was  open 
to  the  charge  of  being  disloyal  to  Judaism,  and,  if 
He  said  "No,"  He  was  equally  open  to  the  charge 
of  being  disloyal  to  Rome.  The  device  of  asking  for 
a  coin  and  commenting  upon  the  superscription,  not 
only  afforded  a  happy  escape  from  the  dilemma,  but 
it  presented  an  opportunity  for  the  enunciation  of  a 
most  important  truth.  The  spheres  of  earthly  and 
of  divine  authority,  while  closely  related,  are  not 
necessarily  antagonistic.  It  is  quite  possible  to  be 
loyal  to  God  and  at  the  same  time  to  be  loyal  to  the 
earthly  ruler.  One  of  the  invaluable  contributions 
which  the  experiment  of  free  institutions  in  the  United 
States  is  making  to  the  political  thought  of  the  world 
is  that  v\'e  are  demonstrating  the  practicability  of  the 
ideal  of  Jesus  that  men  should  be  at  the  same  time 
loyal  to  two  sovereignties,  rendering  unto  Ca?sar  the 
things  that  are  Caesar's  and  to  God  the  things  that  are 
God's. 

The  second  assault  (Mt.  22:23-33)  shifted  the  at- 
tack from  the  political  realm  to  the  theological.  It 
was  conducted  by  the  Sadducees.  Whatever  His  an- 
swer to  the  query  as  to  wdiom  the  woman  should  be- 


The  Witness  oj  Jesus  167 

long  in  the  resurrection  when  she  had  been  the  wife 
of  seven  brothers  on  the  earth,  it  could  hardly  serve 
as  the  basis  of  a  serious  charge.  Perhaps  we  are  not 
wrong  in  seeing  in  this  question  an  attempt  to  put 
Jesus,  as  a  teacher,  in  an  absurd  position,  or  perhaps 
to  strike  at  the  Pharisees  over  Him.  The  Avhole  diffi- 
culty in  the  question  lay  in  the  false  conception  of  the 
future  life  as  the  continuation  of  the  conditions  of  the 
present  physical  life  (1  Cor.  ch.  15;  Lu.  20:34-36). 
But  Jesus  does  not  stop  there.  He  goes  on  to  show 
that  the  Old  Testament  taught  the  immortality  which 
the  Sadducees  denied,  and  hence  that  their  doctrine 
was  unfaithful  to  the  teaching  of  their  own  Scriptures 
which  they  professed  to  follow. 

The  third  question  (Mt.  22:34-40)  reveals  a  break- 
ing-down of  the  attempt  to  put  Jesus,  verbally  at 
least,  in  the  wrong,  so  as  to  secure  the  basis  of  a 
charge  against  Him.  The  point  in  the  mind  of  the 
scribe  evidently  was  the  relative  importance  of  cere- 
monial and  moral  duties.  The  answer  of  Jesus  is 
practically  a  quotation  from  the  Old  Testament  (Deut. 
6:5;  Lev.  19:18).  The  reply  was  so  complete  and 
conclusive  that  the  Pharisees,  whom  the  scribe  rep- 
resented, like  the  Herodians  and  the  Sadducees,  were 
silenced. 

At  this  point  Jesus  Himself  put  a  question  to  the 
Pharisees,  who  may  have  remained  after  the  other 
groups  had  dispersed  (Mt.  22:41-45).  The  purpose 
of  this  question  was  to  show  that  the  promised  Mes- 
siah was  not,  as  they  taught,  a  political  ruler.  David 
had  evidently  made  the  Messiah  greater  than  a  son, 
he  had  made  Him  his  Lord  (Ps.  110:1).  The  Messiah 
therefore  must  be  something  far  more  than  a  Jewish 
sovereign  to  restore  the  glories  of  the  reign  of  David. 
The  suggestion  of  Jesus  carries  our  thought  to  the 
spirituality  and  universality  of  the  dominion  of  Christ. 
The  Pharisees  did  not  know  how  to  answer  Jesus.     He 


168  The  Great  Ministry 

had  silenced  their  cavils.     Now  they  were  silent  be- 
fore His  question. 

Jesus  seems  to  have  felt  that  the  time  for  exposition, 
or  for  an  attempt  to  reach  a  mutual  understanding, 
had  passed.  The  fact  was  that  they  understood  Him 
and  He  understood  them.  The  issue  had  been  drawn. 
They  would  not  accept  Him  or  His  teachings,  and  He 
could  not  compromise  with  them.  There  is  only  one 
course  for  a  true  man  at  such  a  time — to  utter  his 
whole  mind,  to  give  his  whole  message.  That  is  what 
Jesus  came  to  Jerusalem  to  do.  That  is  what  He  now 
did.  Perhaps  this  discourse  (Mt.  ch.  23)  is  unex- 
ampled in  searching,  biting  invective.  The  secrets  of 
hearts  are  laid  bare,  the  gross  inconsistencies  between 
knowledge  and  performance,  between  professions  and 
practice,  are  unveiled,  and  righteous  passion  reaches  a 
tremendous  climax  in  the  curse  of  Jesus  (Mt.  23:29- 
36).  And  yet  we  are  not  to  imagine  these  words  as 
spoken  in  a  frenzy  of  anger.  Perhaps  we  cannot 
imagine  at  all  how  they  were  spoken,  for  the  awful 
curse  is  followed  by  a  passage  in  which  His  heart 
melts  over  Jerusalem,  the  city  of  His  love  (Mt.  23: 
37,  38).  What  we  are  sure  of  is  that  behind  all  these 
words  was  the  heart  of  the  Jesus  whom  we  have  been 
studying. 


CHAPTER  XLIII. 

The  Temper  of  Jesus  after  His  Witness  against 

Jerusalem. 

Mk.  12:41-44;   Jo.  12:20-59. 

Jesus  had  borne  His  full  witness  against  the  leaders 
of  the  nation ;  and  those  who  had  been  especially  exas- 
perated by  His  calls  to  righteousness  and  faith  had 
retired  to  plot  His  destruction.  But,  as  Jesus  tarried 
in  the  temple  court,  the  scene  of  His  crowning  fidelity 
to  His  mission,  two  incidents  took  place  which  throw 
into  bold  relief  His  attitude  of  mind  at  this  epoch 
when  He  was  certain  that  the  schemes  against  His  life 
were  about  to  come  to  fruition.  The  first  illustrates 
His  moral  poise  at  a  time  when  He  was  naturally 
tremulous  with  the  excitement  and  reaction  of  the 
tremendous  conflict  through  which  He  had  just 
passed;  the  second  illustrates  his  fidelity  to  His 
mission  against  a  temptation  quite  as  insidious  as 
the  solicitation  to  cowardice  that  might  have  led  Him 
to  remain  in  Perea. 

As  He  stood  in  the  court  near  the  funnel  shaped 
boxes  into  which  the  passover  pilgrims  were  casting 
their  offerings,  He  noted  the  self-satisfied,  ostenta- 
tious manner  of  the  rich  as  they  made  their  contribu- 
tions, and  then  His  attention  was  arrested  by  the  ap- 
proach of  a  widow  who  shyly  cast  in  two  mites.  She 
little  dreamed  that  that  unobtrusive  gift  was  to  be 
memorable  throughout  the  ages.  Like  the  anointing 
of  His  feet  by  another  woman  her  act  would  be  known 
as  far  as  His  Gospel  was  preached.  Her  deed  was  en- 
dowed with  immortality  because  He  saw  it  and  spoke 
of  it.  The  comment  of  Jesus  was  that  this  woman  had 
made  a  larger  gift  than  all  her  rich  predecessors,  and 
the  reason  was  that  they  had  given  of  their  abundance 
while  she  had  cast  in  all  her  living.     In  other  words 

169 


170  The  Great  Ministry 

it  is  not  what  one  gives  that  measures  the  greatness  of 
the  gift,  but  what  one  has  left  after  the  giving. 

The  clear  apprehension  of  this  truth  would  change 
many  of  our  current  estimates  of  generosity,  and  it 
would  deliver  many  rich  men  from  the  delusion  that 
they  are  doing  some  great  thing  when  they  fling  from 
their  abundance  to  some  good  work.  The  great  Chris- 
tian causes,  church  support,  evangelization,  missions, 
need  large  sums  of  money  to-day,  and  they  are  not 
forthcoming.  A  principal  reason  is  that  Christians, 
for  the  most  part,  have  not  yet  apprehended  the  mean- 
ing of  our  Lord's  saying  on  this  occasion.  The  rich 
man  thinks  that  he  is  doing  his  full  duty  when  he 
gives  twice  or  five  or  ten  times  as  much  as  his  neigh- 
bor, and  especially  if  he  gives  as  much  as  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  local  congregation  put  together  give.  But 
what  one's  neighbor  or  a  group  of  one's  neighbors  give 
has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  one's  own  duty. 
What  the  rich  man  should  give  depends  on  his  devo- 
tion to  the  cause  which  needs  his  gifts  and  on  his  re- 
sources. 

We  might  expect  to  find  that  Jesus  uttered  a  dec- 
laration like  this  in  the  untroubled  days  of  His  early 
ministry.  That  He  should  have  said  this  at  the  very 
time  M^hen  His  spirit  must  have  been  profoundly  dis- 
turbed shows  both  His  mental  balance  in  a  moment 
of  supreme  stress,  and  the  importance  He  placed  upon 
the  loving  and  generous  use  of  one's  resources. 

The  other  incident  involved  an  insidious  temptation. 
Some  Greeks  who  had  embraced  Judaism  sought  Philip 
— ^probably  because  of  his  Greek  name — and  asked 
an  introduction  to  Jesus.  After  consultation  with 
Andrew,  Philip  led  them  to  the  Master.  We  are 
ignorant  as  to  the  interview  itself.  We  only  know 
what  its  effect  was  upon  Jesus.  In  the  eager,  respon- 
sive faces  of  these  honest  men  our  Lord  saw  a  first 
sheaf  of  the  harvest  of  the  Gentile  world.  The  thought 
seems  to  have  occurred  to  Him,  for  the  moment,  that, 


The  Temper  of  Jesus  171 

though  His  own  people  had  rejected  Him,  and,  at  this 
very  time,  their  authorities  were  seeking  His  Hfe, 
might  He  not  find  among  the  Gentiles  a  recognition 
that  He  had  not  found  in  Israel?  might  it  not  be  possi- 
ble for  Him  to  win  men  back  to  God,  in  great  numbers, 
without  submitting  Himself  to  the  fury  of  the  Jewish 
leaders,  and  without  undergoing  a  shameful  death? 
might  not  the  very  prophecy  upon  which  He  had  fed 
His  spirit  point  to  some  issue  like  this  without  the 
agony  of  the  cross  (Is.  60:1,  3)? 

Suggestions  like  these  appear  to  have  been  in  the 
mind  of  Jesus.  We  have  already  pointed  out  that  it 
is  an  error  to  regard  the  temptations  of  Jesus  as 
limited  to  His  experiences  in  the  wilderness  immedi- 
ately after  His  baptism.  These  solicitations  were 
only  preliminary  and  preparative.  The  temptation 
to  gain  kingship  by  some  easier  way  than  the  cross 
(Mt.  4:8-10)  had  appeared  again  before  the  transfig- 
uration (Mt.  16:22,  23),  and  it  reappears  now  in  a 
much  more  subtile  and  insidious  form.  The  sugges- 
tion now  is  that  Jesus  can  gain  His  end  and  fulfil  His 
mission  worthily  by  purely  moral  and  spiritual  means 
and  yet  escape  the  cross.  There  was  a  plausibility 
in  this  last  suggestion  which  concealed  temptation 
that  only  a  keen  spiritual  insight  could  detect.  It 
would  be  manifestly  wrong  to  gain  the  spiritual  king- 
ship that  Jesus  sought  by  worshiping  Satan.  The 
very  ideas  are  incongruous,  but  to  gain  that  kingship 
by  preaching  the  truth  to  the  Gentile  world,  by  doing 
outside  the  borders  of  Israel  what  He  had  been  doing 
for  the  whole  term  of  his  ministry  within  the  limits 
of  Israel,  why  is  not  this  the  reasonable,  the  true,  the 
noble  path?  Did  the  thought  of  Jesus  linger  for  a 
moment  over  the  alternative?  Was  the  vista  of 
escape  which  the  coming  of  the  Greeks  suggested 
alluring?  Is  that  the  meaning  of  the  prayer  so  diffi- 
cult to  interpret,  that  He  might  be  saved  from  tliis 
hour,  coupled  with  the  recognition  that  ' '  this  hour, " 


172  The  Great  Ministry 

this  supreme  temptation,  contains  in  itself  the  heart 
of  His  mission? 

The  fidelity  of  Jesus  to  His  own  earlier  insights  is 
absolute  and  complete.  He  sees  that  the  way  the 
coming  of  the  Greeks  has,  for  a  moment,  suggested  is 
no  true  path.  What  He  said  to  Peter  after  his  great 
confession  is  still  true,  that  "he  must  go  unto  Jerusa- 
lem and  suffer  many  things  of  the  elders  and  chief 
priest  and  scribes,  and  be  killed,"  because  only  through 
His  death  could  His  life  be  made  fruitful,  as  the  seed 
must  die  to  live  again  in  the  waving  harvests  of  the 
autumn  (Jo.  12:24,  32). 

Perhaps  no  theology  has  yet  penetrated  to  the  full 
import  of  that  "must."  After  all  our  speculations 
and  skilful  analogies  there  is  an  elusive  element  in 
the  fact  of  the  necessity  of  the  Redeemer's  death  on 
the  cross.  But,  if  our  interpretation  of  the  inner 
experience  of  Jesus,  when  He  met  these  Greeks,  is 
true,  our  Lord  had  clearly  before  Him  the  opportunity 
of  escaping  the  cross  and  of  seeking  to  establish  His 
kingdom  by  proclamation  of  the  truth.  He  put  the 
suggestion  aside  as  a  temptation.  If  this  was  so,  the 
death  of  Jesus  is  an  essential  element  of  the  Christi- 
anity of  Jesus.  He  believed  that  His  triumph  de- 
pended on  the  cross. 

These  incidents  give  us  a  fresh  and  strong  impres- 
sion of  the  personality  and  temper  of  Jesus  as  He 
went  forth  to  meet  His  death.  He  was  no  baffled, 
hysterical  fanatic.  At  the  close  of  the  conflict  with 
the  Pharisees  and  chief  priests  He  retained  all  the 
delicacy  and  strength  of  His  matchless  insight.  He 
saw  in  the  contrast  between  the  rich  men  and  the 
poor  widow  an  ethical  principle  of  universal  and  com- 
manding import,  and  He  discriminated  between  the 
false  path  and  the  true  for  the  fulfilment  of  His  mis- 
sion. Above  them  all,  at  this  period  of  Aveariness  and 
excitement  He  made  the  great  renunciation  of  His 
whole  career,  and  chose  the  cross. 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 

The  Second  Coming  of  Christ. 

Mt.  chs.  24,  25;  26:1-5,  14-16. 

Tuesday  of  the  week  before  the  crucifixion  stands 
forth  as  memorable  in  all  the  days  of  the  life  of  our 
Lord.  On  that  day  He  had  uttered  His  final  witness 
against  the  rulers  of  the  nation;  on  that  day  He  had 
laid  down  the  law  of  beneficence;  on  that  day  His 
interview  with  the  Greeks  had  suggested  the  most 
insidious  temptation  that  had  beset  His  path,  and 
now  towards  the  close  of  this  momentous  day  He 
gave  His  disciples  the  great  announcement  of  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and  of  His  own  second 
coming. 

This  prophetic 
discourse  was  occa- 
sioned by  the  view 
of  the  city  from  the 
Mount  of  Olives. 
Late  in  the  after- 
noon He  went  out 
of  Jerusalem,  taking 
the  road  to  Beth- 
any, which  ran 
directly  over  the 
Mount  of  Olives. 
Tarrying  for  a  mo- 
ment on  the  summit,  the  disciples  were  impressed 
with  the  superb  beauty  of  that  white  city  in  the 
light  of  the  setting  sun.  The  question  which  rose 
to  their  lips  was  not  only  natural,  it  was  in- 
evitable. They  recalled  the  tremendous  prophecy 
of  destruction  which  that  very  day  Jesus  had  uttered 
in  the  temple  court.  There  before  them  rose  the  tem- 
ple,   towering   above    the    esplanade  formed  by  the 

173 


From  a  photograph. 

The  Summit  of  the  Mount  of  Olives. 


174  The  Great  Ministry 

mighty  and  beautiful  walls  that  formed  the  southeast 
bastion  of  the  city.  The  city  itself  seemed  impreg- 
nable, and  so  lovely  that  an  inspired  New  Testament 
writer  could  find  no  more  adequate  symbol  of  heaven 
itself  than  to  call  it  "the  new  Jerusalem,  adorned  as  a 
bride  for  her  husband."  What,  said  the  disciples, 
casting  their  gaze  across  the  valley,  what  is  to  become 
of  this  strong  and  beautiful  temple  ?  The  answer  was 
one  to  bring  dismay  to  the  heart  of  every  devout  and 
patriotic  Hebrew.  The  reply  of  Jesus  was:  "There 
shall  not  be  left  here  one  stone  upon  another  that 
shall  not  be  thrown  down. " 

This  tragic  answer  immediately  elicited  another 
question  as  to  when  these  things  should  be.  The  re- 
ply of  Jesus  embraces  what  are  known  as  the  apoca- 
lyptic discourses,  and  they  have  been  interpreted  in 
many  ways.  Even  sects  have  been  founded  on  special 
interpretations  of  these  passages.  Without  going  into 
details,  the  discussion  of  which  would  require  many 
chapters,  several  features  of  our  Lord's  reply  are  clear. 

For  example,  it  seems  to  be  plain  that  Jesus  gave 
the  impression  that  He  would  come  to  the  earth  again. 
No  one  who  has  the  slightest  familiarity  with  the  his- 
tory of  the  Apostolic  and  early  church  can  doubt  that 
the  belief  in  the  second  coming  of  Jesus  held  a  very 
large  place  in  the  life  and  thought  of  the  first  Chris- 
tians. Indeed,  as  we  see  in  the  first  letter  of  Paul  to 
the  Thessalonians,  this  doctrine  had  been  so  pushed 
out  of  its  perspective  that  the  outlook  of  many  devout 
souls  upon  the  Christian  Hfe  had  become  perilously 
distorted.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  account  for  such 
a  state  of  affairs  without  tracing  the  doctrine  back  to 
the  words  of  Jesus.  And  a  careful  examination  of 
these  discourses  will  give  the  unprejudiced  student 
sufficient  reason  for  believing  that  the  early  church  did 
not  misunderstand  the  Master.  Actually  there  is  no 
objection  to  the  doctrine  of  the  second  coming  of 
Christ  that  is  not  equally  valid  against  all  belief  in  the 


The  Second  Coming  oj  Christ  175 

miraculous.  And  at  the  bottom  of  the  question  in 
regard  to  the  miraculous  is  not,  Is  this  or  that  event 
contrary  to  human  experience?  but,  Is  it  contrary  to 
the  plan  of  God?  Human  experience  only  affords  par- 
tial evidence  as  to  the  plan  of  God.  The  word  of  the 
prophets  and  the  intuitions  of  the  spirit  are  also  to  be 
taken  into  account. 

At  the  same  time  these  discourses  appear  to  teach 
that  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  man  is  a  process.  A 
phase  of  it  is  to  be  realized  in  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem  by  the  army  of  Titus,  hardly  a  generation 
distant,  but  the  fact  that  the  coming  is  a  process  does 
not  prevent  it  from  being  an  event  also.  The  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  appears  to  be  that  His  coming  is  a  world 
process  culminating  in  an  event — His  personal  return 
to  the  earth.  In  the  highly  figurative  language  of 
these  discourses  these  two  conceptions  are  mingled. 
It  is  not  always  easy  to  separate  them,  but  the  general 
impression  is  not  at  all  doubtful.  The  second  coming 
is  both  a  process  and  an  event.  Christ  came  in  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  He  came  in  the  fall  of 
Constantinople  in  1453,  He  came  in  the  recent 
Russo-Japanese  war.  Christ  is  in  the  world;  all  its 
changes  are  in  His  hands;  the  government  is  upon 
His  shoulders;  ultimately  we  shall  see  that  the  his- 
tory of  the  world  is,  as  Jonathan  Edwards  said,  the 
history  of  redemption.  In  this  sense  Christ  is  com- 
ing all  the  time  in  the  world  process,  but  this  process 
is  moving  toward  an  issue  and  a  cHmax,  and  that  is 
the  personal  return  of  the  Lord  Himself. 

But  it  should  be  noticed  that  there  is  no  hint  as  to 
the  time  of  His  coming  as  an  event.  Indeed,  Jesus 
expressly  declared  that  this  was  one  of  the  things 
that  He  did  not  know  (Mk.  13:32).  It  is  one  of  the 
strangest  features  of  Christian  history  that  multitudes 
of  men  who  accept  as  authoritative  the  Scriptures, 
which  contain  this  statement,  should  spend  themselves 


176  The  Great  Ministry 

in  seeking  to  ascertain  from  the  Scriptures  that  which 
they  declare  that  Jesus  Himself  did  not  know. 

Our  Lord  did  not  answer  the  question  as  to  the 
time  these  things  should  be.  He  adopted  the  course 
He  took  after  the  resurrection  when  the  disciples 
inquired  as  to  the  restoration  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel 
(Acts  1:6-8).  He  called  their  thought  away  from  the 
seasons  and  chronologies  to  urgent  present  duty.  The 
prudent  virgins  make  provision  for  the  bridegroom's 
coming  at  any  moment.  It  is  not  in  their  power  to 
forecast  the  hour,  but  it  is  in  their  power  to  be 
prepared  for  His  coming  at  any  hour  (Mt.  24:45-51; 
25:1-13).  And  this  preparation  is  not  a  noisy,  bus- 
tling, nervous  activity,  and  still  less  a  round  of  pro- 
fessional or  ceremonial  observance;  it  consists  in 
fidelity  to  trusts (  Mt.  25  :  14-30),  and  in  unostentatious 
helpfulness  to  one's  fellow  men  (Mt.25:31-46).  The 
Master,  who  has  just  declared  that  He  will  be  present 
in  the  world  in  the  terrific  conflict  that  is  to  end  in 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  now  declares  that  He 
will  be  present  in  the  world  in  the  events  of  ordinary 
life  so  that  the  man  who  ministers  to  a  human  being 
ministers  to  Him. 

Already,  as  this  momentous  daj^  closes,  the  toils  of 
His  enemies  close  about  Jesus.  One  of  His  own  dis- 
ciples becomes  the  ready  tool  of  the  rulers'  intrigues. 
Perhaps  before  Jesus  reached  Bethany  that  evening, 
Judas  had  made  his  first  approaches  to  the  priests. 
He  may  have  slipped  away  from  the  little  group, 
lingering  on  the  summit  of  the  Mount  of  Olives,  while 
Jesus  was  speaking  the  words  we  have  been  studying. 


CHAPTER  XLV. 
The  Last  Supper. 

Mk.  14:22-26;  Lu.  22:7-30;  Jo.  13:1-30. 

Probably  our  Lord  spent  Wednesday  and  Thursday 
morning  of  the  last  week  of  His  life  at  the  home  of 
Martha,  Mary  and  Lazarus  in  Bethany.  Thursday 
afternoon  He  sent  Peter  and  John  into  the  city  to 
make  ready  the  passover  meal,  which  He  wished  to 
share  with  His  disciples  (Lu.  22:8-13). 

By  this  time  Jesus  must  have  passed  through  that 
bitter  agony  of  spirit  which  is  always  involved  in 
making  a  decision  that  involves  one's  hold  upon  life. 
That  decision  had  been  irrevocably  made  on  the 
momentous  Tuesday  when,  by  His  scathing  denunci- 
ation of  the  chief  men  in  Jerusalem,  He  had  closed  the 
door  against  any  possible  reconciliation.  The  quiet 
and  opportunit}^  for  reflection  He  enjoyed  on  Wednes- 
day probably  did  much  to  calm  His  spirit,  and  on 
Thursday  afternoon  He  returned  to  the  city  fully  pre- 
pared to  meet  the  issue  which  He  had  never  attempted 
to  evade.  He  knew  that  it  was  most  unlikely  that 
He  would  ever  again  see  Bethany,  or  make  one  of  the 
household  group  which  was  bound  to  Him  by  so 
many  ties. 

During  these  days  the  disciples  must  have  been  al- 
most dazed.  They  realized  that  some  calamity  was 
impending;  they  did  not  know  exactly  what.  Per- 
haps they  felt  that  Jesus  had  gone  entirely  too  far  in 
denouncing  the  leading  men  of  His  time,  and  that 
it  would  have  been  far  better  to  adopt  a  more  concil- 
iatory tone.  And  yet  their  faith  in  Jesus  was  not 
broken.  The  dispute  which  arose  before  the  supper 
as  to  which  of  them  should  be  greatest  was  not  a  dis- 
cussion that  could  have  taken  place  among  a  group 
of  men  who  believed  that  they  had  committed  them- 

177 


178  The  Great  Ministry 

selves  to  a  losing  cause.  The  language  of  Jesus,  as 
reported  by  Luke,  was  admirably  adapted  to  en- 
courage this  hopeful  mood  (Lu.  22:24-30).  Jesus  did 
not  say  that  their  ideas  of  the  kingdom  He  was  to 
establish  were  correct,  but  He  did  say  that  there  was 
to  be  a  kingdom.  Let  us  never  forget  that  the  su- 
perb promise,  "I  appoint  unto  you  a  kingdom,  .  .  . 
and  ye  shall  sit  on  thrones  judging  the  twelve  tribes 
of  Israel "  (Lu.  22 :29,  30) ,  was  spoken  at  this  supper. 

It  is  one  of  the  bitter  ironies  of  Christian  history 
that  the  farewell  supper  of  Jesus  with  His  friends, 
the  memory  of  which  suggests  beautiful  fellowship 
and  divine  love,  should  have  been  the  occasion  and 
subject  of  the  most  acrimonious,  uncharitable  discus- 
sions, and  of  vindictive  persecutions.  To  realize  the 
truth  of  this  we  have  only  to  recall  that  for  cen- 
turies transubstantiation — the  doctrine  that,  by  the 
agency  of  the  priest  in  celebrating  the  mass,  the  wafer 
and  the  wine  are  miraculously  transmuted  into  the 
veritable  body  and  blood  of  Christ — has  been  the 
very  apple  of  the  eye  of  the  Roman  system.  We  have 
only  to  recall  that  Luther  at  the  Marburg  conference 
threw  away  the  fairest  opportunity  for  a  real  union  of 
the  great  reform  movements  of  the  sixteenth  century 
by  insisting  against  Zwingli  that  the  word  "is,"  in 
the  sentence,  "This  is  my  body,"  must  be  taken 
literally.  The  very  memorial  that  Jesus  intended 
should  propagate  love  and  unselfish  devotion  has  been 
a  battle  ground,  associated  with  all  the  atrocities  of 
war. 

It  is  possible  to  read  into  the  narrative  many  inter- 
pretations, but  three  aspects  of  the  Lord's  supper  are 
too  clear  to  admit  of  debate.  One  is  that  our  Lord 
associated  this  supper  with  the  Jewish  passover.  The 
supper  carries  over  into  Christianity  the  spirit  and 
interior  significance  of  the  great  Hebrew  observance. 
In  a  certain  sense  it  is  legitimate  to  interpret  the 
latter  ceremonial  through  the  earlier,  but  we   must 


The  Last  Slipper  179 

always  be  on  our  guard  that  we  have  penetrated  to 
the  real  genius  of  the  earlier  observance,  and  are  not 
misled  by  fanciful  and  superficial  analogies.  Jesus 
appears  to  have  thought  of  Himself  as  prefigured  in 
the  paschal  lamb.  Just  as  there  was  protection  for 
the  Hebrew  household,  at  the  time  of  the  original 
possover,  in  the  blood  of  the  lamb,  His  own  death 
would  bring  vast  benefit  to  His  followers;  and  just 
as  the  eating  of  the  passover  represented  a  covenant 
relation  between  the  participant  and  God,  so  the 
observance  of  the  supper  typified  a  new  covenant 
relation  between  God  and  the  friends  of  Christ. 

But  more  than  this,  these  narratives  describing  the 
institution  of  the  supper  show  conclusively  the  central 
place  that,  in  the  thought  of  Jesus,  His  own  death 
was  to  have  in  establishing  His  kingdom.  His  body 
is  to  be  broken;  His  blood  is  to  be  poured  out.  Paul, 
in  his  report  of  the  original  supper,  declares  that  the 
purpose  for  which  it  is  to  be  observed  is  that  be- 
lievers may  "proclaim  the  Lord's  death  till  he  come" 
(1  Cor.  11:26).  If  our  interpretation  of  the  interview 
of  Jesus  with  the  Greeks  is  justified  (Chapter  XLIII), 
and  at  that  time  He  resisted  the  suggestion  that 
His  own  death  might  not  be  essential  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  His  mission,  it  was  entirely  natural  that 
He  should  make  the  great  element  in  His  ministry  to 
mankind  the  principal  message  of  the  observance 
which  He  wished  to  commemorate  his  career.  In 
the  religion  of  Jesus,  the  relationship  between  His 
death  and  His  triumph  is  so  close  and  vital  that  the 
latter  is  not  possible  without  the  former.  It  is  a  true 
spiritual  insight  into  the  genius  of  Christianity  which 
has  made  the  cross  its  symbol. 

And  then,  too,  we  can  hardly  fail  to  see  how  proin- 
inent  the  commemorative  element  is  in  the  supper. 
Modern  Christians  owe  a  great  debt  to  Huldreich 
Zwingli  for  impressing  this  aspect  of  the  supper  upon 
the  thought  of  men.     The  way  Jesus  wished  to  be 


180  The  Great  Minisiiy 

remembered  was  that  His  friends  should  gather  about 
a  table,  and  take  a  morsel  of  bread  and  a  sip  of  wine 
in  His  memory.  How  simple  and  how  beautiful  it  is! 
And  all  through  the  ages,  in  the  great  cathedrals  of 
sumptuous  cities,  in  village  churches,  in  the  caves  of 
the  Waldensian  mountains,  on  the  seas,  in  the  forests 
and  deserts,  faithful  men  and  women  have  shared 
the  bread  and  wine  and  thought  of  the  Master.  The 
scene  in  the  upper  room  in  Jerusalem  has  been  re- 
enacted  in  their  experience,  and  their  hearts  have 
glowed  with  new  devotion  to  their  Redeemer  and  Lord. 


CHAPTER  XLVI. 

The  Farewell  Message. 

Jo.  13:31—17:26. 

If  the  gospel  narrative  is  substantially  the  weaving, 
around  a  slender  nucleus  of  fact,  of  the  devout  fancies 
which  the  disciples  of  our  Lord  came  to  entertain  con- 
cerning Him,  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  imagine  how 
they  succeeded  in  maintaining  the  spiritual  teachings 
of  Jesus  upon  the  high  level  on  which  they  are  pro- 
jected. The  requisite 
amount  of  pains  in  com- 
piling documents  would 
secure  historical  and 
chronological  accuracy, 
though  these  are  mat- 
ters as  to  which  the 
Evangelists  have  been 
least  careful.  But  to 
make  the  spiritual  out- 
looks and  insights  of 
Jesus  congruous  with 
themselves  was  an  un- 
dertaking of  superhu- 
man difficulty.  Many 
gifted  men  and  women 
have  striven  to  write 
imaginative  sketches  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  upon  the 
basis  of  the  data  given  in  the  four  gospels,  but 
whenever  they  represent  Jesus  as  saying  something 
beyond  what  is  recorded  of  Him,  it  is  plain  at  once 
that  the  wings  of  their  imagination  are  unequal  to 
such  an  upward  flight. 

Those  who  would  explain  the  gospels  upon  such 
a  theory  meet  one  of  the  important  difficulties  in  their 
task,  when  they  would  make  clear  to  us  how  any  dis- 

181 


The  Traditional  "Upper  Chamber. 


182  The  Great  Ministry 

ciple,  even  John  himself,  could  have  fabricated  the 
farewell  discourse  at  the  supper,  and  the  intercessory 
prayer.  The  conclusion  is  as  nearly  irresistible  as  an 
argument  that  is  not  technically  demonstrable  can  be, 
that  they  did  not  imagine  but  reported. 

One  or  two  general  considerations  are  impressed 
upon  every  thoughtful  reader  of  these  chapters.  One 
is  that  Jesus,  in  view  of  the  near  approach  of  death — 
He  was  confident  that  He  had  only  a  few  hours  to 
live — absolutely  preserves  His  self-poise,  His  confi- 
dence in  the  triumph  of  His  cause  and  in  His  unsullied, 
uninterrupted  relationship  with  the  Father.  There 
is  nothing  foreboding  or  panic-stricken  in  a  syllable 
that  fell  from  His  lips.  And  His  peace  is  not  that  of 
the  stoic  who  takes  whatever  may  come  with  an  equal 
mind,  because  he  feels  that  he  has  done  all  he  can. 
His  peace  was  not  even  the  strange,  almost  unearthly 
calm  that  ruled  four  centuries  before  in  the  rock- 
hewn  cell  in  Athens,  where  Socrates  spent  the  last 
hours  of  his  life  with  his  friends.  We  are  aware,  as 
we  read  the  luminous  and  touching  pages  of  the 
Phcsdo,  that  that  Avise  and  cheerful  spirit  could  see 
nothing  distinctly  beyond  the  cup  of  hemlock.  That 
is  not  what  we  feel  as  we  read  these  chapters  of  John's 
gospel.  Jesus  sees  the  cross  upon  which  in  a  few 
hours  He  is  to  hang,  but  He  sees  clearly  far  beyond  it. 
He  sees  the  "many  mansions,"  and  the  Father's 
house;  He  sees  the  coming  of  the  Spirit,  and  the 
victory  of  the  kingdom:  He  sees  the  reunion  of  the 
faithful  when  He  and  they  together  shall  drink  the 
new  wine  of  the  final  triumph.  There  is  gloom  at  the 
farewell  supper  in  the  upper  room  in  Jerusalem,  but 
it  is  the  sorrow  of  the  present  parting;  not  the  sor- 
row that  comes  from  the  forecast  of  ultimate  defeat 
and  failure.  Perhaps  this  personal  attitude  of  Jesus 
toward  the  apparent  overthrow  of  His  work  and  the 
death  of  the  cross  has  done  as  much  as  any  one  thing 
recorded   in   the   gospels   to   inspire   intelligent   faith 


The  Farewell  Message  183 

in  Him.  Whatever  the  weight  we  attach  to  miracles, 
it  is  evidence  that  belongs  in  the  court  of  the  Gentiles 
when  we  compare  it  with  the  evidence  from  the  per- 
sonal outlook  of  Jesus  upon  the  cross  and  the  future 
of  His  kingdom  and  His  relationship  to  the  Father. 
We  feel  that  He  knew  the  issues  of  life  and  death; 
that  the  key  of  destiny  was  in  His  hands;  that  He 
had  the  secret  of  the  cosmos. 

Hardly  less  impressive  is  our  Lord's  attitude  toward 
His  disciples  at  this  critical  hour.  The  farewell  dis- 
course and  prayer  palpitate  with  personal  affection. 
Jesus  Himself  was  something  more  than  Master  and 
Teacher,  He  was  the  dearest  personal  friend.  At  this 
hour  His  own  heart  seems  to  have  responded  more 
deeply  than  ever  before,  perhaps,  to  the  Avarm  human 
devotion  of  these  men  who  had  been  His  companions. 
He  knew  them  thoroughly — all  their  weaknesses  and 
limitations — but  He  loved  them  and  they  loved  Him. 
But  strangely  enough  there  is  not  in  His  mind  the 
slightest  sense  of  personal  loss,  on  His  part,  at  leav- 
ing them ;  not  a  word  as  to  His  missing  their  associa- 
tion and  companionship  in  the  future.  All  that  we 
expect  those  who  love  us  truly  to  say  when  they  part 
from  us,  even  for  a  long  journey,  He  left  unsaid.  He 
told  them  how  much  they  would  miss  Him,  but  not 
a  word  fell  from  His  lips  as  to  how  He  would  miss 
them.  What  is  the  explanation  of  this.?  Does  it  not 
run  all  through  these  chapters?  They  would  not  see 
Him,  or  consciously  share  His  experiences;  but  He 
would  see  them,  share  all  their  experiences,  and 
enter  into  their  lives  more  profoundly  than  ever  be- 
fore. As  another  Evangelist  reports  Him  as  say- 
ing. He  would  "be  with  them  all  the  days. "  There  is 
little  or  nothing  in  ordinary  human  intercourse  to 
furnish  an  analogy  between  this  relationship  of  Jesus 
and  His  friends.  The  very  fact  that  He  should  have 
conceived  such  a  relationship  as  that  He  indicates 
as  possible,  is  one  of  the  incidental  and  often  over- 


184  The  Great  Ministry 

looked  aspects  of  the  consciousness  of  Jesus  which 
points  toward  His  divinity. 

Now  we  have  no  means  whatever  of  testing  the 
truth  of  the  forecast  of  Jesus,  that  He  would  be  as 
actually  present  with  His  disciples  as  though  they 
were  conscious  of  association  with  Him  through  the 
perception  of  the  senses.  But  one  of  the  marvels  of 
Christian  experience  is  that  it  so  uniformly  bears 
witness  to  the  reality  of  the  presence  and  help  of  the 
unseen  Christ.  Wherever  you  find  a  company  of 
Christians,  testifying  to  one  another  of  the  way  God 
has  dealt  with  them,  the  constant  note  in  their  wit- 
ness is  the  consciousness  of  the  presence  of  Christ,  in 
times  of  hardship  and  temptation,  in  the  experience 
of  joy.  The  uniformity  of  this  witness  in  every  age 
is  one  of  the  outstanding  facts  of  Christian  history. 
It  is  as  clear  in  this  century  as  it  was  in  the  sixteenth . 
or  the  eleventh,  or  the  fifth  or  the  first.  May  it  not 
be  that  we  have  in  this  fact  of  the  inner  life  a  decisive 
vindication  of  the  forecast  of  our  Lord? 

And  we  may  go  a  step  beyond  this.  In  this  discourse 
Jesus  distinctly  said  that  the  whole  efficiency  of  His 
disciples  in  carrying  on  His  work  would  depend  on 
His  unseen  presence  and  co-operation.  And  has  it 
not  been  true  that  efficiency  in  Christian  service  has 
very  largely  been  in  proportion  to  the  soul's  realiza- 
tion of  the  presence  of  Christ  (Gal.  1:15,  16)? 

Did  some  devout  spirit  of  the  second  century  attrib- 
ute these  ideas  to  Jesus?  It  is  incredible.  He  must 
have  spoken  them.  And  the  attitude  toward  the 
future,  toward  the  triumph  of  His  kingdom,  toward 
the  Father  and  toward  His  followers  that  these  words 
reveal,  has  throughout  the  ages  been  one  of  the 
strongest  bases  of  faith  in  Him.  When  men  come  to 
great  sorrows,  great  temptations  and  conflicts;  when 
they  face  death;  the  chapters  in  the  Bible  which  they 
wish  to  have  read  are  these  which  record  the  farewell 
message  of  our  Lord. 


CHAPTER  XLVII. 

The  Shadow  of  the  Cross. 

Mt.  26:36-56. 

It  is  one  thing  to  feel  the  enthusiasm  and  spiritual 
elevation  of  a  high  resolve  at  a  table  surrounded  by 
loving  and  sympathetic  friends,  and  quite  another 
thing  to  remain  in  this  mood  after  the  company  breaks 
up  and  the  lighted  chamber  is  exchanged  for  the  dark- 
ness and  chill  of  the  night.  In  the  farewell  conver- 
sations of  Jesus  with  His  disciples  in  the  upper  room 
there  is  not  a  hint  of  repining  or  shrinking.  He  strikes 
the  confident  and  heroic  note  with  a  sureness  of  touch 


From  a  photograph. 

The  Garden  of  Gethsemane  and  the  Mount  of  Olives. 

As  seen  from  the  city  walls. 

that  imparted  to  His  friends  something  of  His  own 
certainty  of  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the  kingdom. 

In  company  with  the  eleven  friends  Jesus  left  the 
supper  room  when  the  evening  was  far  spent.  The 
little  band  made  their  way  through  the  crowded  streets 
— for  though  the  hour  was  late  the  night  was  a  festal 
occasion  on  which  few  slept.  They  passed  through 
one  of  the  city  gates,  over  the  foot  bridge  that  crossed 
the  Kidron,  which  at  this  season  was  a  rushing  moun- 
tain stream,  into  the  haunts  that  Jesus  loved — the 

185 


186  The  Great  Ministry 

green  and  shady  olive  groves  and  vineyards  on  the 
western  slope  of  the  Mount  of  Olives.  During  this 
walk  the  mood  of  Jesus  underwent  a  great  change. 
The  cross  looked  very  different  to  Him  from  what  it 
did  at  the  table  in  the  upper  room.  He  knew  what 
was  before  Him  then,  but  there  were  aspects  of  what 
awaited  Him  that  did  not  appeal  to  Him  then  in  just 
the  same  way  that  they  did  now.  We  brace  ourselves 
to  bear  a  misfortune,  and  we  think  that  it  cannot  be 
worse  when  it  comes  than  it  is  now,  after  we  have 
made  up  our  minds  to  it.  But  when  the  telegram 
actually  comes  announcing  the  sweeping  away  of  a 
fortune,  or  the  death  of  one  precious  to  us,  there  are 
a  reality,  a  hardness,  and  a  finality  about  the  message 
that  were  utterly  absent  from  our  forecasts. 

Do  not  let  us  imagine  that  the  change  in  the  mood 
of  Jesus  makes  Him  less  heroic.  The  courageous  man 
is  not  the  one  who  has  no  fears,  whose  heart  does  not 
quail  as  he  faces  some  grave  peril,  but  the  courageous 
man  is  the  one  whose  spirit  masters  these  tremors  and 
forebodings  under  the  impulse  of  some  great  call  of 
love,  or  duty,  or  honor  to  which  he  absolutely  sur- 
renders himself.  The  truth  is  that  the  shrinking  of 
Jesus  from  the  cross,  while  it  does  not  make  Him  less 
heroic,  brings  Him  vastly  nearer  to  humanity  than 
any  stolid  advance  toward  death  could  possibly  do. 
We  see  that  the  divine  life  was  lived  under  human 
conditions  and  limitations,  and  that  in  the  pro- 
foundest  sense  the  Master  can  sympathize  with  the 
sorrows  and  burdens  of  humanity. 

A  question  arises  just  here  which  must  often  have 
occurred  to  students  of  the  gospels.  Why  was  it  that 
when  Jesus  came  face  to  face  with  the  cross,  upon  this 
last  night  of  His  life.  He  was  so  profoundly  affected 
by  it.  As  we  have  seen,  just  before  the  transfiguration 
He  anticipated  this  hour,  and  administered  a  severe 
rebuke  to  Peter  when  he  ventured  to  question  the 
accuracy  of  the  forecast.     He   had   deliberately  re- 


The  Shadow  of  the  Cross 


187 


turned  from  Perea  to  Jerusalem  to  bear  a  witness 
which  even  the  most  obtuse  of  the  disciples  had 
thought  would  result  in  His  death.  Two  days  before 
this  He  had  delivered  messages  that  made  impossible 
any  compromise  with  those  seeking  His  Hfe.  Socrates 
had  done  much  the  same.  He  had  seen  from  afar 
what  was  coming;  he  had  refused  to  seek  safety  by 
flight;  he  persisted 
in  his  faithful  but 
irritating  message. 
Still  when  Socrates 
came  to  meet  death 
he  did  it  with  calm- 
ness and  serenity. 
Neither  Zenophon 
nor  Plato  give  the 
impression  that  Soc- 
rates was  at  all  loth 
to  drink  the  poison, 
if  that  was  what 
the  law  ordained. 

The  Evangelists  do  not  give  that  impression  of 
Jesus  in  their  account  of  this  night.  To  be  sure,  w^hen 
Judas  had  betrayed  Him,  and  before  Caiaphas  and 
Herod  and  Pilate,  the  mood  of  the  upper  room  re- 
turned. Socrates  actually  did  not  meet  death  more 
bravely  and  unflinchingly  than  did  Jesus;  and  there 
is  no  comparison  between  the  horror  a  death  on  the 
cross  would  arouse  in  any  finely  organized  man,  and 
the  dread  of  drinking  a  quick  and  painless  poison. 

Why,  then,  did  Jesus,  who  answers  so  magnificently 
to  every  test  of  courage,  dread  so  profoundly  the  death 
of  the  cross,  that  on  this  night  in  Gethsemane  He 
prayed  that,  if  it  were  possible,  He  might  be  delivered 
from  it? 

The  writers  of  the  New  Testament  have  an  expla- 
nation of  this  singular  fact  that,  for  many  centuries, 
has  profoundly  impressed  the  thought  of  Christians. 


From  ft  photogriph. 

Olive  Trees  in  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane. 


188  The  Great  Ministry 

They  say  that  death  did  not  mean  to  Jesus  what  it 
meant  to  Socrates.  To  Socrates  it  meant  what  it 
means  generally  to  men — the  end  of  life  on  the  earth, 
with  a  more  or  less  clear  anticipation  of  life  under 
other  conditions.  To  Jesus  His  death  meant  personal 
identification  with  the  spiritual  loss  and  ruin  of  sinful 
humanity.  It  was  not  the  physical  dread  of  death 
that  appealed  to  Jesus,  except  in  the  very  slightest 
degree,  if  at  all.  Death  to  Jesus  was  the  symbol  and 
penalty  of  the  curse  of  sin.  The  death  of  Jesus 
meant  the  absolute  and  perfect  participation,  on  His 
part,  in  the  curse  and  destiny  of  sinful  humanity. 
And  the  victory  of  Jesus  over  death  means  that  sinful 
humanity  is  to  share  His  destiny  just  as  He  by  His 
death  has  shared  its  lot. 

If  the  death  of  Jesus  was  what  the  great  Messianic 
prophecies  had  indicated  the  sufferings  of  the  servant 
of  Jehovah  should  be  (Is.  53:5,  6);  if  His  death  was 
what  He  Himself  declared  it  was,  "a  ransom  for 
many"  (Mt.  20:28);  if  He  was,  as  the  Baptist  de- 
clared, "the  Lamb  of  God,  that  taketh  away  the  sin 
of  the  world"  (Jo.  1:29),  the  reason  of  the  agony  in 
the  garden,  of  the  sweating  of  the  drops  of  blood,  of 
the  prayer  that  He  might  not  drink  "the  cup"  be- 
comes intelligible.  The  veil  is  lifted  a  little.  We 
can  understand  how  the  agony  of  Gethsemane  points 
to  the  eternal  relations,  and  to  the  worth  in  the 
eternal  realm  of  the  cross  of  Christ. 


CHAPTER  XLVIII. 
Caiaphas  and  Pilate. 

Jo.  18:12—19:16. 

The  late  Professor  Simon  Greenleaf  of  the  Harvard 
Law  School  undoubtedly  expresses  the  opinion  of 
most  competent  lawyers  that  the  condemnation  of 
Jesus  by  the  Jewish  authorities  as  worthy  of  death, 
was,  in  spite  of  its  grave  technical  irregularities,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  Jewish  lawyers  and  judges, 
entirely  justifiable.  It  is  important  to  realize  sharply 
the  truth  of  this 
statement  in  order 
that  we  may  see 
precisely  what  was 
the  sin  and  crime  of 
those  who  brought 
Jesus  to  the  cross. 
Of  course  it  must 
be  conceded  at  the 
outset  of  this  exam- 
ination that  Annas 
and  Caiaphas  and 
their  party  had  a 
strong  desire  to  get 
Jesus  out  of  the 
way,  and  that  they  made  use  of  their  position, 
and  of  every  technical  point  to  compass  this  end. 
But  the  critical  point  in  the  two  Jewish  examina- 
tions was  when  Caiaphas  asked  Jesus  the  solemn, 
direct  question,  "I  adjure  thee  by  the  living 
God,  that  thou  tell  us  whether  thou  art  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God"  (Mt.  26:63).  To  that  Jesus 
imequivocally  answered,  "I  am"  (Mk.  14:62).  Then 
it  was  that  the  high  priest  rent  his  garments,  and 
said,  "He  hath  spoken  blasphemy;  what  further  need 

189 


Coirrtyard  of  the  Traditional  House  of 
Caiaphas. 


190  The  Great  Ministry 

have  we  of  witnesses"  (Mt.  26:65)?  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  this  claim  of  Jesus  was  in  their  eyes  to 
be  justly  construed  as  blasphemy,  and  that  the  pre- 
scribed penalty  of  blasphemy  was  death  (Deut.  18: 
20). 

What,  then,  was  the  sin  of  the  Jewish  leaders  in 
this  judgment  against  Jesus?  Was  it  not  this,  that 
traditional  views  and  partisan  considerations  and  sel- 
fish advantage  had  so  blinded  their  eyes  that  they 
could  not  see  or  understand  that  the  claim  of  Jesus 
was  true  that  He  was  indeed  the  Messiah,  the  Son  of 
God?  The  only  values  they  could  appreciate  were 
those  that  appealed  to  their  prejudices  based  on  an 
unspiritual  view  of  life,  and  to  their  pride  of  place. 
The  sin  of  the  leaders  of  the  nation  who  sought  the 
death  of  Jesus  was  simply  the  commonplace,  vulgar 
sin  of  "blindness  of  heart,"  unresponsiveness  to  spir- 
itual values,  the  inability  to  appreciate  anything  that 
could  not  be  reduced  to  the  terms  of  their  immediate 
desires.  The  sin  of  these  ancient  Hebrews,  then,  was 
in  no  way  unique  or  peculiar,  it  is  the  sin  that  meets 
us  to-day  in  our  houses  and  in  our  business  and  social 
life — the  sin  of  spending  money  for  that  which  is  not 
bread,  and  labor  for  that  which  does  not  satisfy  be- 
cause we  do  not  see  what  is  good  (Is.  55:2).  The 
things  of  supreme  worth  are  before  us,  and  we  do  not 
respond  to  them. 

This  witness  of  Jesus  to  Himself  before  Caiaphas 
is  one  of  the  mountain  peaks  of  the  gospel  story.  For 
a  long  time  Jesus  carefully  avoided  asserting  His 
divinity.  He  wished  to  have  it  come  to  His  disciples 
as  a  slowly  ripening  conviction,  identified  with  the 
very  substance  of  their  spiritual  experienc">.  He  did 
not  tell  them  how  great  He  was.  He  let  them  perceive 
it.  But  now  before  Caiaphas  He  makes  the  stagger- 
ing assertion,  "I  am  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God." 
He  not  only  made  the  assertion,  but  He  gave  up  His 
life  in  witness  to  its  truth.     Nothing  can  be  plainer 


Caiaphas  and  Pilate  191 

than  that  His  enemies  had  no  case  against  Him  before 
He  made  that  answer  to  the  high  priest.  After  that 
they  had  all  the  case  they  wanted.  This  was  the 
supreme  witness  of  Jesus.  He  died  because  He  could 
not  deny  Himself.  Perhaps  those  who  have  argued 
for  the  divinity  of  Jesus  have  not  always  seen  as 
clearly  as  they  should  the  pivotal  nature  of  His  answer 
to  Caiaphas.  He  knew  who  He  was  and  what  He 
was  better  than  any  one  else;  and,  on  trial  for  His 
life,  when  another  answer,  or  even  an  evasion,  would 
have  foiled  His  enemies,  He  said,  "I  am  the  Messiah, 
the  Son  of  God. " 

The  sin  of  Pilate  was  not  the  same  as  the  sin  of 
Caiaphas  and  the  priestly  leaders.  The  sin  of  the 
latter  was  that  of  moral  blindness;  the  sin  of  Pilate 
was  deliberate  disloyalty  to  the  light.  Pilate  knew 
that  he  was  putting  an  innocent  man  to  death;  he 
detected  at  once  the  difference  between  the  kingship 
Jesus  asserted  and  any  claim  that  would  annoy  the 
Roman  power;  he  honestly  tried  to  save  Jesus,  pro- 
posing one  weak  compromise  after  another.  And  at 
length  he  yielded  to  the  suggestion  that,  if  he  let 
Jesus  go,  his  enemies  would  make  out  a  plausible  case 
against  him  of  unfriendliness  to  Tiberius  Caesar.  The 
struggle  cost  Pilate  a  great  deal.  He  saw  clearly 
enough  what  was  right.  His  sympathies,  his  moral 
nature,  and  the  entreaties  of  his  wife  were  all  on  the 
side  of  Jesus;  but  the  harm  this  unreasoning  Jewish 
mob  could  do  him  at  Rome,  the  assumption  that  prob- 
ably one  fanatic  more  or  less  in  turbulent  Jewry  was 
a  neglectable  factor,  overbore  his  conscience  and 
judgment,  and,  in  the  terse  and  terrible  words  of 
John,  that  read  like  a  sentence  from  the  biting  page 
of  Tacitus,  "Then  therefore  he  delivered  him  unto 
them  to  be  crucified"   (Jo.  19:16). 

It  may  be  said  that  the  sin  of  Caiaphas  is  simply 
the  resultant  of  the  sin  of  Pilate,  that  by  repeated 
disloyalties  to  conscience  men  lose  the  power  of  moral 


192  The  Great  Ministry 

discrimination,  but  that  does  not  always  account  for 
unresponsiveness  to  spiritual  values.  Heredity,  train- 
ing, atmosphere,  prejudice,  partisan  interest,  selfish 
advantage,  really  blind  men's  eyes  to  the  things  of 
supreme  worth.  Such  forces  operated,  for  example, 
with  the  Apostle  Paul.  It  is  not  inconceivable  that 
if  he,  at  this  time,  had  been  on  the  Sanhedrin  that 
condemned  Jesus  he  would  have  voted  with  the  party 
of  Caiaphas.  But  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  dis- 
loyalties to  conscience  like  that  of  Pilate  sear  the 
moral  nature,  so  that  the  power  to  discern  the  truth 
at  all  is  lessened.  Goethe  was  right  when  he  said, 
"He  who  sins  against  the  light  kisses  the  lips  of  a 
blazing  cannon."  The  tremendous  penalty  of  sin  is 
not  external  punishment  of  any  kind,  long  or  short, 
but  the  disintegration  of  faculties  so  that  they  do 
not  function,  and  men  having  eyes  see  not.  How 
far  the  sin  of  Caiaphas  was  like  the  sin  of  Pilate,  and 
how  far  it  was  like  the  sin  of  Paul,  only  the  All  Wise 
Reader  of  the  secrets  of  the  heart  can  determine. 

The  report  of  Pilate's  examination  of  Jesus  makes 
it  plain  that  before  the  man  who  really  held  the  death 
penalty  in  his  hand,  Jesus  ivithdrew  nothing  that  He 
had  asserted  before  Caiaphas.  He  is  a  king.  He 
claims  it,  and  the  procurator  feels  that  it  is  true. 
Pilate  sees  that  with  the  old  purple  cloak  thrown 
about  Him,  with  the  crown  of  thorns  from  which  the 
blood  drips  upon  His  head,  with  a  stick  in  His  hand, 
and  with  the  spittle  of  the  soldiers  upon  His  beard. 
He  is  the  royal  One,  and  he  has  a  strange  conscious- 
ness that  he  is  before  the  judgment  seat  of  Jesus, 
while  Jesus  seems  to  be  before  his  tribunal. 


CHAPTER  XLIX. 
"He  Died  for  our  Sins." 

Mt.  27:32-66. 

There  was  no  appeal  from  the  decision  of  Pilate. 
Roman  law  enjoined  the  immediate  execution  of  a 
sentence  that  could  not  be  appealed  from,  hence  that 
very  afternoon  Jesus  was  remanded  to  the  Roman 
soldiery  to  be  crucified.  This  is  one  of  the  most 
cruel  forms  of  executing  the  death  penalty  that  men 
have  ever  devised,  and  happily  the  prevalence  of 
humane  sentiments  has  banished  it  from  the  borders 
of  civilization. 

The  events  of  that  afternoon  have  been  burned 
into  the  consciousness  of  the  modem  world.     Many 


The  New  Calvary,  Showing  the  Face  of  the  Cliff. 
Drawn  from  a  photograph  taken  from  the  north  wall  of  Jerusalem. 

of  the  most  celebrated  works  of  art  in  sculpture  and 
painting  have  set  before  us  these  incidents.  The  most 
competent  writers  in  both  prose  and  poetry  have 
striven  to  set  that  afternoon  vividly  before  our  imag- 
inations. One  da}^  in  the  year  throughout  Christen- 
dom is  devoted  to  the  memory  of  those  hours,  and  the 
most  ignorant  peasant  in  Southern  Europe  knows 
what  the  crucifix  means,  and,  as  she  kisses  the  image, 

193 


194  The  Great  Ministry 

has  recalled  to  mind  some  features  of  that  astounding 
event.  That  Friday  afternoon  of  April  has  become 
the  outstanding  day  in  human  history.  Throughout 
the  centuries,  when  men  have  felt  the  pressure  and 
reaUzed  the  power  of  sin,  and  above  all,  when  they 
have  been  called  from  the  earth  to  meet  God,  they 
have  thought  of  Golgotha,  and  of  the  three  crosses 
and  of  the  Divine  sufferer. 

It  is  needless  for  us  to  recite  the  events.  It  will  be 
more  profitable  for  us  to  consider  the  question  which 
lies  so  near  the  heart  of  the  religion  of  Jesus:  What 
is  the  significance  of  these  occurrences.''  What  is  the 
meaning  of  the  cross  of  Christ? 

The  crucifixion  of  Jesus,  from  one  point  of  view,  is 
the  gravest  indictment  conceivable  against  the  provi- 
dential government  of  the  world.  What  kind  of  God 
is  it  who  can  permit  the  purest  and  noblest  Hfe  to  be 
caught  in  the  whirring  machinery  of  cause  and  effect 
to  perish  cruelly  and  shamefully  on  the  cross  ?  If  this 
can  be  the  destiny  of  a  career  like  that  of  Jesus,  the 
ruler  of  the  universe  must  be  utterly  regardless  of 
moral  distinctions.  Virtue  is  only  a  name,  and  the 
force  at  the  heart  of  things  is  utterly  blind  or  malevo- 
lent. The  evil  there  is  in  the  world  often  taxes  the 
faith  of  the  best  men  in  the  goodness  of  God.  The 
death  of  Jesus  upon  the  cross  seems  to  be  a  conclusive 
demonstration  that  God  is  not  good.  If  the  cross 
was  the  portion  of  the  pure  and  holy  Jesus,  what  rea- 
son have  we  for  believing  that  anything  good  is  in 
store  for  one  of  us,  except  as  good  may  be  wrought 
out  by  mere  chance? 

There  is  absolutely  no  answer  to  such  questior.s, 
except  the  most  sinister  one,  unless  the  death  of  Jesus 
looks  beyond  itself,  and  accomplishes  results  in  the 
moral  realm  adequate  to  the  stupendous  cost  of  the 
means.  The  writers  of  the  New  Testament  give  that 
interpretation  to  the  death  of  Jesus.  They  declare 
that  it  is  not  an  end,  but  the  means  to  an  end  which 


"//^  Died  for  our  Sins"  195 

amply  and  gloriously  justifies  it.  They  say  that  "He 
died  for  our  sins,"  and  that,  through  His  death,  the 
possibility  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  of  the  redemption 
of  human  life  from  the  power  of  evil,  and  of  the  re- 
conciHation  of  man  with  God  is  realized.  In  other 
words,  God  permitted  the  tragedy  of  the  cross,  with 
its  blazing  injustice,  for  a  purpose  of  love;  and  the 
cross  of  Christ,  instead  of  demonstrating  the  careless- 
ness of  God  as  to  moral  distinctions,  is  the  supreme 
evidence  of  His  good  will  and  love  to  men.  The 
Apostle  Paul  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  it  is  such  an 
overwhelming  proof  of  the  love  of  God  for  man  that 
it  is  a  reason  for  believing  that  God  will  do  every 
thing  that  omnipotence  can  do  for  man.  This  is  the 
answer  of  the  Scriptures  to  the  apparently  inexplicable 
enigma  of  the  death  of  Christ  upon  the  cross.  This 
is  the  way  that  inspired  men  have  harmonized  the 
crucifixion  with  a  belief  in  the  moral  order  of  the 
world. 

The  question  now  arises.  What  did  the  death  of 
Jesus  accompHsh  upon  the  cross?  How  did  it  achieve 
the  results  the  Scriptures  attribute  to  it?  It  is  no  an- 
swer to  that  question  simply  to  say  that  the  cross  of 
Christ  manifests  the  love  of  God.  Indeed,  a  strict 
logician  is  justified  in  saying  that  such  an  answer 
begs  the  question.  Love  must  be  purposeful  and  in- 
telligent to  manifest  itself  in  an  act.  If  you  are 
walking  along  a  riverside  with  your  boy,  and  throwing 
yourself  into  the  water  risk  your  life,  you  do  not  mani- 
fest your  love  for  your  boy  by  that  act  of  insane 
folly.  Your  sacrifice  of  yourself  has  no  intelligent 
relation  to  the  welfare  of  the  child.  God  does  not 
and  cannot  manifest  His  love  for  men  by  any  spec- 
tacular sacrifice  on  the  part  of  Christ.  But  if  your 
boy  has  fallen  into  the  river,  and  you  plunge  after 
him,  to  save  him  at  the  risk  or  cost  of  your  own  life, 
that  act  of  sacrifice  demonstrates  your  love  for  your 
child.     There  is  an  intelligible  relationship  between 


196  The  Great  Ministry 

the  sacrifice  you  make  of  yourself  and  what  you  pro- 
pose to  accomplish. 

There  have  been  many  answers  to  the  question  as 
to  how  the  death  of  Christ  saves  men.  Great  theolo- 
gies have  divided  in  regard  to  that  question.  Answers 
that  have  been  deemed  conclusive  and  satisfactory 
in  one  age  have  not  been  so  regarded  in  another,  but 
all  along  the  history  of  Christian  thought,  from  the 
days  of  Patil  to  our  own  time,  followers  of  Christ  have 
believed  that  the  death  of  Jesus  accomplished  some- 
thing in  the  eternal  realm  that  made  the  forgive- 
ness of  human  sin  and  the  salvation  of  men  possible. 
The  crucifixion  of  Jesus  was  not  permitted  by  the 
moral  indifference  of  God  to  holiness,  but  it  was  a 
manifestation  of  the  love  of  God,  who  at  this  enor- 
mous cost,  saved  men  from  the  guilt  and  power  of  sin. 

Still,  however  inadequate  the  plummet  of  our  phil- 
osophies may  be  to  sound  the  depths  of  this  transcend- 
ent revelation,  the  witness  of  human  experience  has 
triumphantly  vindicated  the  reality  of  the  release 
from  sin  which  the  cross  of  Christ  accomplished. 
Ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand  hearts  are  now  re- 
joicing in  the  spiritual  emancipation  and  sense  of 
fellowship  with  God  that  have  come  to  them  through 
the  cross  of  Christ,  and  this  experience  has  continued 
in  different  races  and  successive  generations  for  hun- 
dreds of  years.  We  take  down  from  our  shelves 
Ignatius  of  the  second  century,  and  he  speaks  of  the 
cross  of  Christ  as  we  do  to-day.  He  finds  in  it  the 
ground  of  peace  with  God.  We  go  to  India,  and 
mingle  with  a  group  of  native  Christians  and  they 
say  the  same  things.  Across  the  seas  and  the  cen- 
turies Christian  hands  clasp  Christian  hands.  Fol- 
lowers of  Jesus  look  into  one  another's  eyes,  and, 
though  of  different  race  and  tradition  and  speech,  they 
recognize  one  another  as  partakers  of  the  mighty 
inner  experience  that  centers  about  the  cross  of 
Christ. 


CHAPTER  L. 

The  Living  Jesus. 

Mt.  28:1-15;  Lu.  24:13-35;  Jo.  ch.  20. 

If  we  were  reading  the  gospel  narrative  for  the  first 
time  and  came  to  the  account  of  the  death  of  Jesus 
upon  the  cross  we  should  doubtless  be  conscious  not 
only  of  the  cruelty  and  injustice  of  the  ending  of  His 
life,  but  we  should  feel  that  it  was  incongruous  that 
One  who  was  born  in 


From  a  photnTrsph. 

Entrance  to  the  New  Tomb. 


the  way  the  gospels 
describe,  who  showed 
such  power  over  na- 
ture and  over  death 
itself,  who  claimed  and 
manifested  such  rela- 
tionship to  God,  should 
close  His  existence  in 
dying  like  common 
men.  The  grave  and 
worms  and  corruption 
are  not  an  ending  that 
carry  the  story  truly  on.  Perhaps  we  could  not  say 
beforehand  just  how  the  arc  of  such  a  life  should  com- 
plete itself  within  the  range  of  human  vision,  but 
certainly  it  ought  not  to  end  in  death,  and  much  less 
in  the  death  of  the  cross.  Whatever  else  we  may 
think  of  the  record  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  it  matches  the  account  of  the 
life  of  Jesus.  The  narrative,  on  the  plane  on  which  it 
is  projected,  is  harmonious  with  itself. 

This  wa}^  of  regarding  the  resurrection  of  our  Lord 
is  in  perfect  accord  with  many  of  the  representations 
of  the  New  Testament.  In  the  first  Apostolic  sermon, 
delivered  a  few  weeks  after  the  morning  of  the  resur- 
rection, we  find  Peter  saying  that  God  raised  up  Jesus, 

197 


198  The  Great  Ministry 

having  loosed  the  pangs  of  death,  because  "it  was  not 
possible  that  he  should  be  holden  of  it"  (Acts  2:24). 
The  meaning  is  plain.  The  resurrection  was  not 
accomphshed  by  some  addition  to  the  power  that  was 
inherent  in  Jesus  during  His  life.  The  resurrection 
was  simply  a  manifestation  of  the  power  we  see  in 
Jesus  when  He  commanded  the  winds  to  cease,  when 
He  recalled  Lazarus  to  life,  and  when  He  was  conscious 
of  the  closest  fellowship  with  the  Father.  "It  was 
not  possible  that  he  should  be  holden  of  it."  The 
ideas  of  Jesus  and  death  are  as  incongruous  as  the 
ideas  of  a  Rothschild  and  abject  poverty;  as  the  ideas 
of  Sir  Isaac  Newton  and  crass  ignorance ;  as  the  ideas 
of  Beethoven  and  insensibility  to  musical  harmonies. 
What  is  in  our  minds  when  we  think  of  Jesus  as 
irreconcilable  with  our  thought  of  death?  The  dec- 
laration, "Jesus  is  dead,"  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
"It  was  not  possible  that  he  should  be  holden  of  it." 
From  this  point  of  view  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  is 
not  a  miracle.  The  miraculous  element  lies  far  back 
of  the  resurrection  morning,  it  lies  in  the  personality 
of  Jesus  Himself.  That  is  the  wonderful,  the  astound- 
ing phenomenon.  The  miracles,  as  we  call  them,  re- 
corded in  the  gospels,  the  words  of  wisdom,  the  super- 
nal consciousness,  are  all  manifestations  of  the  one 
great  miracle,  the  personality,  the  character  of  Jesus. 
This  view  does  not  minimize  the  place  of  the  resur- 
rection in  Christian  evidences,  rather  it  enhances  it, 
for  it  does  not  regard  the  rising  of  Jesus  from  the 
dead  as  an  isolated  phenomenon;  it  regards  it  as  the 
natural,  the  inevitable  sequence  of  the  divine  life — 
"It  was  not  possible  that  he  should  be  holden  of  it." 

But  there  is  good  reason  for  doubting  whether  the 
New  Testament  writers  and  the  early  Christians  re- 
garded the  resurrection  chiefly  as  a  piece  of  evidence 
to  other  truths.  It  was  something  much  more  vital 
than  a  link  in  a  chain  of  logic.  Peter  brought  out  the 
ruling  idea  of  the  first  disciples  in  his  explanation  to 


The  Living  Jesus  199 

the  Sanhedrin  of  the  heahng  of  the  lame  man  at  the 
Beautiful  Gate.  He  said,  "Be  it  known  unto  you  all, 
and  to  all  the  people  of  Israel,  that  in  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth,  whom  ye  crucified,  whom 
God  raised  from  the  dead,  even  in  him  doth  this  man 
stand  here  before  you  whole"  (Acts  4:10).  In  other 
words,  through  the  resurrection,  Jesus  continued  to  be 
an  active  personality  in  human  concerns.  The  risen 
and  living  Jesus  restored  the  lame  man.  "In  him  doth 
this  man  stand  here  before  you  whole."  To  the 
earliest  Christian  preachers  the  resurrection  w^as  not 
so  much  an  argument  as  a  fact  that  was  self-explain- 
ing.    It  showed  that  Jesus  was  still  alive. 

The  truth  that  the  mighty  personality,  which  it  was 
impossible  for  death  to  hold,  is  a  present  active  force 
in  the  world  to-day,  comes  very  near  to  the  heart  of 
the  gospel.  Christianity  is  not  expressed  in  a  series 
of  propositions,  no  matter  how  sublime  or  inspiring 
they  may  be;  nor  do  men  embrace  Christianity  by 
assenting  to  propositions.  The  religion  of  Jesus  con- 
sists primarily  in  the  relation  between  a  human  soul 
and  a  Person.  When  Jesus  was  on  earth  He  said, 
"Come  unto  me,"  "Follow  me,"  "Abide  in  me." 
These  commands  were  not  simply  for  the  Hebrews 
of  Palestine  during  those  short  years  of  the  first  half 
of  the  first  century.  They  are  perpetual  calls,  open- 
ing perpetual  privileges,  because  He  who  spoke  them 
is  still  living,  and  invites  men  to-day  to  the  fellow- 
ship that  He  offered  to  the  first  disciples.  All  that 
Jesus  was  on  earth  to  men,  all  that  He  became  to  men 
by  His  sacrificial  death  on  the  cross,  is  available  for 
men  through  the  channels  of  personal  fellowship  with 
the  living  Jesus. 

The  friend  of  the  Master  is  not  devoted  to  Him 
simply  as  to  a  beautiful  memory.  He  sustains  the 
most  intimate  relation  to  a  living  Person.  He,  the 
living  Jesus,  is  now  thinking  of  His  friends,  guiding 
them,  opening  ways  for  them,  revealing  His  will  to 


200  The  Great  Ministry 

them,  giving  them  assurances  of  His  love.  Many  a 
time  in  the  pages  of  the  gospel,  in  prayer,  in  the  ful- 
filment of  some  taxing  duty  for  His  sake,  we  seem  to 
catch  intimations  of  His  presence;  and  one  of  these 
days  there  will  be  a  swift  transition  from  the  stony 
streets  of  our  earthly  cities  to  the  golden  pavements 
of  the  New  Jerusalem;  from  the  dwellings  of  wood 
and  stone  in  which  we  live,  to  the  Father's  house; 
from  seeing  Him  through  a  glass  darkly  to  beholding 
Him  face  to  face. 


CHAPTER  LI. 

"The  Same  Jesus." 

Mt.  28:16-20;  Lu.  24:44-53;  Jo.  ch.  21. 

In  the  course  of  these  studies  we  have  frequently- 
alluded  to  the  difficulty  of  conceiving  that  the  gospel 
narrative  is  the  product  of  the  imagination  of  the 
early  Christians.  That  difficulty  also  confronts  us 
when  we  consider  the  record  of  the  post-resurrection 
appearances  of  Jesus.  These  accounts  are  marked 
by  so  many  delicate  insights  and  correspondencies 
that  they  bear  upon  their  face  the  proof  that  they  are 
narratives  of  actual  events. 

For  example,  what  a  marvelous  thing  it  is  that  the 
Evangelists'  apparent  unconsciousness  of  what  they 


The  Church  of  the  Ascension,  on  the  Mount  of  Olives. 

were  doing  should  have  attributed  to  the  Jesus  of 
the  resurrection  the  traits  that  are  peculiarly  charac- 
teristic of  the  Master  before  His  crucifixion!  Some 
of  these  quahties  are  so  outstanding  that  they  attract 
the  attention  of  the  dullest  reader. 

One  of  the  marked  characteristics  of  Jesus  in  the 
days  of  His  earthly  life  was  the  perfect  balance  in  His 
conduct  between  the  ideal  and  the  practical.     That 

201 


202  The  Great  Ministry 

is  a  rare  combination  of  qualities,  for  the  idealist  is 
commonly  thoughtless  about  common  affairs,  and  the 
practical  man  is  apt  to  think  lightly  of  what  makes 
no  direct  appeal  to  the  perceptions  of  his  senses. 
Though  Jesus  had  the  secret  springs  of  His  life  in  the 
unseen,  and  loved  to  retire  to  solitudes  for  self-com- 
munion and  prayer,  He  never  lost  touch  with  the 
common  interests  and  cares  of  humanity.  His  ser- 
mons and  parables  show  the  keenest  appreciation  of 
the  facts  of  life  and  of  the  ways  of  men.  His  miracles 
were  elicited  by  His  sympathy  with  suffering.  Upon 
the  cross,  when  the  face  of  God  seemed  to  be  hidden, 
and  the  burden  of  the  world's  sin  rested  upon  His 
soul.  He  was  so  thoughtful  for  His  mother  that  He 
designated  as  an  arrangement  for  her  comfort  that 
John  should  care  for  her.  The  same  trait  marks  the 
Jesus  of  the  resurrection.  Though  in  His  brain  are 
the  thronging  secrets  behind  the  veil.  He  has  a  living 
sympathy  with  the  toils  and  cares  of  our  common  lot. 
His  first  thought  after  the  resurrection  was  for  His 
disciples  and  especially  for  the  faithless  Peter  to  whom 
He  sent  a  message  by  Mary  Magdalene.  We  cannot 
miss  the  exquisite  tact  with  which  He  made  Himself 
known  to  the  disciples  at  Emmaus,  or  the  sympathy 
with  which  He  met  the  doubt  of  Thomas.  And  when 
at  Gennesaret  the  hungry  and  weary  fishermen  came 
to  the  shore  they  found  that  the  Lord's  hands  had 
made  ready  the  morning  meal. 

Another  trait  in  the  character  of  Jesus  during  His 
earthly  life  was  His  absolute  frankness  in  circum- 
stances that  commonly  lead  men,  at  least  by  silence, 
to  acquiesce  in  the  errors  of  others.  When  others  have 
touchingly  manifested  their  appreciation  of  us  it  is 
by  no  means  easy  to  rebuke  them  for  their  errors  or 
faults.  But  directly  after  Peter  had  uttered  his  mag- 
nificent confession,  "Thou  are  the  Christ,  the  Son  of 
the  living  God, "  Jesus  addressed  to  Peter  one  of  the 
severest  rebukes  that  ever  fell  from  His  lips.     The 


''The  Same   Jesus''  203 

atmosphere  of  the  scene  on  the  beach  at  Gennesaret, 
after  the  resurrection,  is  suffused  with  the  love-light 
that  follows  forgiveness  and  reconciliation,  and  yet, 
at  that  very  time,  Jesus  administered  a  deserved  re- 
buke to  the  Peter  whom  He  restored,  because  the 
disciple  was  putting  curiosity  above  duty. 

Still  another  characteristic  of  the  Master  was  His 
reluctance,  in  dealing  with  sinners,  to  drag  their  sins 
to  a  mortifying  exposure.  He  quickened  the  con- 
science of  sinful  men,  but  He  did  not  cross-examine 
them.  There  was  an  infinitely  delicate  reticence 
about  Him  in  speaking  of  sins.  In  His  light  sinners 
knew  their  sins,  and  they  knew  that  He  knew  them. 
That  was  enough.  The  probing,  scrutinizing,  tabu- 
lating disposition  was  not  in  Him.  His  dealing  with 
the  woman  in  Simon's  house,  with  Zacchaeus,  with 
the  woman  taken  in  sin,  illustrate  this.  The  Jesus  of 
the  resurrection  has  the  same  trait.  The  first  inter- 
view with  Peter  was  private.  No  one  knows  what 
took  place  behind  the  closed  doors  in  the  house  of 
Zacchseus;  no  one  knows  what  took  place  between 
Peter  and  the  Master.  Before  Peter's  fellow  disciples 
there  is  no  railing  accusation,  no  reproach  no  drag- 
ging the  man  to  confession;  only  a  question  of  love. 
The  Jesus  of  the  resurrection,  who  said  to  Peter  in  the 
early  morning  by  the  lakeside,  "Lovest  thou  me," 
is  the  Jesus  of  Nazareth  who  said  to  the  woman  in 
Simon's  house,  "Thy  sins  are  forgiven,"  and  then  to 
Simon,  "for  she  loved  much." 

A  striking  feature  of  the  thought  of  Jesus  comes 
out  in  His  teaching  as  to  His  kingdom.  There  runs 
through  His  words  before  His  death  an  expectation 
that  His  claims  would  be  universally  acknowledged, 
that  His  kingdom  would  be  world-wide.  This  peasant 
from  an  insignificant  village  declared  that  His  field 
was  the  world.  He  spoke  with  much  confidence  of 
the  time  when  men  would  come  from  every  quarter 
to  crowd  into  His  kingdom.     He  went  so  far  as  to 


204  The  Great  Ministry 

say  that  He  would  be  the  judge  of  "all  nations." 
One  of  the  most  quoted,  massive  utterances  of  the 
first  Napoleon  is  his  declaration,  "I  propose  to  make 
the  Mediterranean  a  French  lake,"  but  that  expres- 
sion of  imperial  ambition  dwindles  beside  the  pre- 
diction of  Jesus.  We  turn  to  the  sentences  which 
the  Evangelists  put  on  the  lips  of  Jesus  after  the 
resurrection,  and  there  runs  through  them  the  same 
magnificent  confidence.  We  cannot  be  insensible  to 
the  sublime  sweep  of  the  last  commission.  Like  His 
earlier  utterances  it  embraces  the  world  and  antici- 
pates its  end:  "All  authority  hath  been  given  unto 
me  in  heaven  and  on  earth.  Go  ye  therefore  and 
make  disciples  of  all  the  nations,  baptizing  them  into 
the  name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy 
Spirit:  teaching  them  to  observe  all  things  whatso- 
ever I  commanded  you:  and  lo,  I  am  with  you  always, 
even  unto  the  end  of  the  world"  (Mt.  28:18-20). 
These  sentences  bear  the  unmistakable  impress  of 
the  mind  of  Jesus.  They  are  of  the  same  mintage  as 
His  earlier  forecasts  of  His  kingdom.  It  is  not  easy 
to  account  for  them  on  any  theory  that  denies  that 
Jesus  of  Narazeth  rose  from  the  dead  and  spoke  them. 
It  would  be  a  pleasing  task  to  elaborate,  from  this 
point  of  view,  the  proof  it  furnishes  for  the  truth  of 
the  resurrection  itself.  But  the  argument  would 
sweep  far  beyond  the  establishment  of  the  historic 
fact;  it  would  show  that  the  experiences  of  the  mys- 
teries of  existence  wrought  no  change  in  our  Lord's 
essential  personality,  or  in  His  views  of  truth,  from 
the  very  circumstance  that  after  His  resurrection  He 
amended  nothing,  changed  nothing,  but  instructed 
His  disciples  to  proclaim  what  He  had  told  them  be- 
fore to  the  end  of  time.  Above  all,  this  line  of  thought 
affords  a  firm  basis  for  confidence  that  He  is  now 
what  He  is  in  the  pages  of  the  gospels.  When  we  go 
to  the  pier  to  meet  the  friend  who  has  been  journey- 
ing for  years  in  foreign  lands,  how  difficult  it  is  to 


"The  Same  Jesus"  205 

suppress  the  foreboding  that  he  may  have  been  so 
changed  by  his  experience  that  the  old  tie  of  loving 
confidence  has  been  broken!  When  Lazarus  sat  at 
the  table  with  the  sisters  in  Bethany  after  he  had  been 
restored  from  the  dead,  was  the  relationship  between 
them  and  him  the  same  as  before  his  sickness?  The 
facts  we  are  studying  answer  such  questions  as  to 
Jesus.  Mary  recognized  the  familiar  tone  in  His  voice. 
His  attitude  toward  human  life,  His  frankness,  His 
sympathy,  and  His  anticipations  as  to  His  kingdom 
are  the  same  after  the  resurrection  as  before  His 
death,  and  we  may  well  believe  that  if  the  experiences 
of  the  cross  and  the  grave  did  not  change  Him,  nothing 
will,  and  when  to-day  we  come  to  Him  in  prayer  we 
come  to  One  whom  we  know. 


CHAPTER  LII. 

Interpreting  Jesus. 

Review  of  Chapters  XL-LI. 

The  importance  of  the  events  in  the  life  of  Jesus 
after  the  triumphal  entry  into  Jerusalem  is  indicated 
by  the  fact  that  the  first  three  gospels  devote  from  a 
third  to  a  half  of  their  space  to  this  period,  and  John 
about  three-fifths  of  his  entire  book.  During  the 
forty-seven  days  between  the  triumphal  entry  and  the 
ascension  we  have  the  main  facts  for  a  just  estimate 
of  the  personahty  and  ministry  of  Jesus.  This  period 
reveals  what  He  was  and  what  He  did  for  men.  In 
view  of  these  facts  it  is  proper  that  we  should  devote 
the  closing  chapter  of  these  studies  to  the  general  im- 
pression made  by  the  New  Testament  portraiture  of 
the  career  of  Jesus. 

To  begin  with,  it  is  very  plain  that  He  appears  be- 
fore us  as  the  culmination  of  a  long,  historic  process 
in  which  the  hopes  and  promises  of  the  preceding 
revelation  are  finally  realized.  Jesus  was  profoundly 
conscious,  and  often  asserted,  that  the  stream  of  the 
historic  revelation  and  of  the  spiritual  life  of  Israel 
culminated  in  Himself.  Time  and  again,  He  saw  in 
the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  forecasts  of  the  details 
of  His  own  life.  Lawgivers  and  prophets  and  relig- 
ious poets  were  unconsciously  guided  in  their  utter- 
ances so  that  their  words  became  anticipatory  of  His 
character  and  ministry.  The  great  argument,  which 
more  than  any  other  contributed  to  the  estabHshment 
of  the  rehgion  of  Jesus  upon  a  firm  historical  basis, 
was  the  one  which  Jesus  Himself  suggested  in 
His  conversation  with  the  disciples  on  the  way 
to  Emmaus,  when  we  are  told  that,  "beginning 
from  Moses  and  from  all  the  prophets,  he  interpreted 
to  them  in  all  the  scriptures  the  things  concerning 

206 


Interpreting  Jesus  207 

himself"  (Lu.  24:2  7).  The  staple  of  the  Apostolic 
preaching  was  the  elaboration  of  this  argument  (Acts 
2:25-33;  7:51-53;  17:3). _  Because  of  this  fact  it  is 
impossible  to  come  to  a  just  appreciation  of  Jesus  by 
considering  Him  as  an  isolated  personality  in  Pales- 
tine, or  even  by  setting  Him  imaginatively  in  the 
environment  of  the  civiHzation  of  that  day.  The 
environment  of  Jesus  is  something  far  larger  than  the 
Graeco-Roman  world  of  the  first  century.  It  is  a 
divinely  guided,  vast  historic  process.  It  reaches 
back  to  the  call  of  Abraham,  and  back  of  that  to  the 
promise  in  the  garden.  Vague  hints  and  aspirations, 
the  institutions  of  Israel,  the  strange,  troubled 
national  histor}%  and  the  voices  of  prophets  gradually 
becoming  clearer  and  more  positive  make  up  the  real 
environment  of  Jesus,  and  He  is  the  product  of  the 
divine  intelligence  and  purpose  that  was  in  the  history 
and  the  institutions  and  the  visions.  Jesus  fulfils  and 
interprets  the  revelation  to  and  in  Israel,  and  at  the 
same  time  that  earlier  revelation  helps  us  to  interpret 
Him. 

Again,  we  must  not  forget  that  this  portraiture  of 
Jesus  has  clarified  and  determined  the  moral  ideal 
of  the  race.  Cicero  makes  the  naive  remark  that  up 
to  this  time  philosophers  had  not  been  able  to  agree 
what  manner  of  person  a  perfectly  good  (just)  man 
should  be.  Wherever  the  portraiture  of  Jesus  in  the 
gospels  has  gone  that  question  has  been  finally  an- 
swered. The  only  attempt  worth  noticing  in  modern 
times  to  throw  doubt  upon  the  perfection  of  the  ideal 
of  Jesus  was  by  John  Stuart  Mill  in  his  essay  on 
Liberty,  but  readers  of  Mill's  posthumous  essays 
will  recall  that  his  mature  judgment  was  that  "it 
would  not  be  easy,  even  for  an  unbeliever,  to  find  a 
better  translation  of  the  rule  of  virtue  from  the 
abstract  into  the  concrete  than  to  endeavor  so  to  live 
that  Christ  would  approve  our  life"  {Three  Essays 
on  Religion,  p.  255).     The  record  of  the  Evangelists 


208  The  Great  Ministry 

has  done  what  the  analyses  and  speculations  of  the 
finest  brains  could  not  accomplish.  It  has  set  forth 
a  moral  ideal  which  is  self-evidencing  and  satisfying. 
It  not  only  meets  the  needs  of  the  reason  and  of  the 
moral  nature,  but  meets  them  so  perfectly  that  by 
responding  to  it  reason  becomes  true  in  its  action 
and  the  moral  nature  purified.  In  philosophy  and 
art  and  jurisprudence  and  science  the  sceptre  of 
authority  has  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  but  in  the 
spiritual  life  and  in  the  practice  of  virtue  Jesus  holds 
an  uncontested  place. 

Within  the  next  half  century  the  great  historic 
faiths  are  destined  to  come  to  close  quarters.  Hu- 
manly speaking,  the  religious  history  of  the  next 
thousand  years  will  be  determined  by  the  issue  of 
the  conflict  that  discerning  minds  see  from  afar.  One 
of  the  supreme  forces  of  Christianity  in  that  struggle 
will  be  the  supremacy  of  its  moral  ideal.  The  procla- 
mation from  whatever  quarter  of  a  nobler  moral  ideal 
than  that  of  Christ  would  mean  that  slowly,  perhaps, 
but  nevertheless  inevitably,  Jesus  would  be  superseded. 

Still  further,  we  must  interpret  the  character  and 
ministry  of  Jesus  in  the  light  of  the  fact  that  He  is 
the  source  of  the  Christian  experience.  Principal 
Fairbairn  remarks  that  there  is  a  history  which  the 
record  of  the  Evangelists  has  made  as  well  as  a  history 
which  it  records.  This  is  not  the  place  in  the  page 
which  remains  even  to  hint  at  the  course  of  his  high 
argument,  but  his  remark  suggests  that  there  is  a 
Christian  experience,  with  its  sense  of  emancipation 
from  sin,  with  its  consciousness  of  peace  with  God, 
with  its  knowledge  of  fellowship  with  the  unseen 
Christ,  which  has  been  generated  by  spiritual  contact 
with  the  Person  of  whom  the  record  tells  us.  No 
interpretation  of  Jesus  makes  full  use  of  the  materials 
at  hand  which  does  not  explore  and  explain  this  mar- 
velous Christian  experience.  The  Christians  who 
gather  for  a  prayer  meeting  on  the  plains  of  Montana, 


Interpreting  Jesus  209 

or  in  the  trackless  forests  of  the  Canadian  Northwest, 
understand  better  how  the  Christians  of  the  second 
century  in  the  Roman  catacombs  felt,  and  what  they 
believed  and  hoped  for,  than  a  consummate  archaeolo- 
gist, like  Dill  or  Lanciani,  comprehends  the  life  of 
imperial  Rome  of  the  same  period.  The  scholars 
draw  inferences  from  fragments  of  literature  and 
inscriptions  and  ruins,  the  Christians  penetrate,  by  a 
deep  interior  bond  of  spiritual  sympathy,  into  the 
very  souls  of  their  brethren,  who  loved  and  followed 
the  Master  seventeen  hundred  years  ago.  Like  their 
brethren  in  Rome,  the  Christians  of  to-day  have 
experienced  the  forgiveness  of  sins  through  faith  in 
Jesus;  they  know  that  from  Him  there  comes  a  new 
spiritual  force  for  righteousness;  they  are  persuaded 
that  He,  the  shepherd  of  souls,  will  keep  His  flock. 
It  is  in  the  light  of  such  facts  and  experiences  that 
we  must  interpret  the  personality  and  ministry  of 
Jesus;  and  it  is  in  the  light  of  all  the  facts  that,  when 
to-day  the  question  is  asked  that  is  put  to  Simon 
Peter,  we  answer  with  him,  "Thou  art  the  Christ,  the 
Son  of  the  living  God.  " 


Date  Due 

} 

(|) 

BS2420.H816 

The  great  ministry, 

.  n  M'.""'°?.II"°!?.?'e^'  Semmary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00013  0502 


